In my years at a Roman Catholic boarding school, St. Ed’s High School, in Texas I was a definition of the nerd even though that term had yet to be used. I did not know how to dance, so at the sock hops at or basketball gym, I was a wall flower.

One of my classmates, Lee Lytton (born in Sarita, Texas), joined the cheeleaders. We had yet to know or use the term gay. We thought he was effeminate.

This was not the case. The only woman on campus was a cook in our cafeteria. We lusted after women. There was a Catholic school on the other side of the city called St. Mary’s. These were the girls that came our dances. And our cheerleaders had girls from St. Mary’s. Lee Lytton was awfully smart. Being a cheerleader he had contact with these girls.

I was a member of the school band. I played the alto saxophone. We performed at our school football games. The cheerleaders were there next to us. One of the girls was a very short Latina called Judy Reyes. While playing I would stray my view from reading the music to see if when she jumped up I could see her underwear.  I did many times. I believe this was my first idea of the concept of the erotic.

Somehow I managed to get enough nerve and I did have a few dates with her and shuffled my two left feet at the sock hops with her.

It was in December of 1967 when I spotted this shortish blonde with long straight  hair who was wearing a miniskirt and had lovely legs. I saw her from the back.This was Rosemary Healey from New Dublin, Ontario. We were married a month and half later.

In her quiet way Rosemary was the most erotic woman I ever met.

From the moment we arrived in Vancouver in 1975 I photographed all kinds of women clothed and unclothed in my pursuit of perfect eroticism.

Some 20 years ago, on impulse, I called one of my subjects and I asked her how she would define eroticism. Her answer has remained with me since, “Yielding flesh.”

In the last few days I have been selecting slides which I will project by invitation to the Gallery 881 on September 19. My good slides I have mounted on Dutch made glass slide holders called Gepe. Today I found this one of an aged rose on our bed. There is something about it that to me defines what is erotic.

I am placing here a scan of the slide and a print of a photograph that I took all those many years ago as my interpretation of yielding flesh.

Because I am going to be 82 in a few days, I would like to clarify that the only woman I am interested in is my dead Rosemary. I am tired of seeing women in yoga clothing on the street and I am no longer affected by red-carpet cleavage.

Somehow the rose on the bed awakened in me a feeling I thought I had lost.