As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, when I went to D.C. in January 1986 I foolishly neglected to take a camera along — a choice I still regret. Thankfully, I did keep a trip journal (in a notebook that was originally “Chocolate Scented”) describing my visits to various museums, riding the Metro, my day trip to Baltimore, and the odd […]
My apologies if it seems that lately I have been constantly jumping from one topic to another, but the fact is I just got my hands on a fantastic vintage photo album that I’m quite excited about. And, given the fact that today in the US we’re observing Independence Day, I thought it was quite appropriate to share a few of these images this week. While I have pages and pages of similar vintage photos (some measuring a mere 2.5 x 1.5 inches/6.3 x 3.8 cm) to share at some point in the future, I promise that next week I will be returning to the tour of South America. One reason I’m so pleased with these photos is that on my one and only trip to Washington, D.C. (back in January 1986) I kept very busy running around seeing as many things as possible — but I completely failed to shoot any pictures of my own. I have only postcards to remember that trip by, along with a few notes in a travel journal. I don’t know a whole lot about this particular photo album except that the images date from the mid 1940s and include some professionally shot and labeled photos as well as shots by an amateur photographer documenting a class trip to the nation’s capital. I really appreciate seeing these black-and-white images of the famous landmarks in DC, and it’s intriguing to see how much some of […]
I discarded my own high school yearbooks long, long ago, but when I found a vintage annual from 1968 at the Roseville flea market, I grabbed it. Fresno High’s Royce Hall (pictured above) dates from 1922, although the school itself has been in existence since 1889. Some of the school’s former students include Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, director/screenwriter […]
This post was originally published as Memory Monday, Week 80, in August 2018. The pilots and ground crews worked very hard at keeping the planes in the air; but every once in awhile things didn’t go as planned. Two views of a B-24 Liberator after a hard landing:
This post was originally published as Memory Monday, Week 78, in July 2018. This week I have a gallery of some of the Mustangs based at Johnson Air Base in 1950.
This post was original published as Memory Monday, Week 76, on July 23, 2018. Typing “39th Fighter Squadron” into Google gets me a lot of information about the squadron’s history in World War 2 and Korea, mostly focused on the pilots who flew missions over hostile territory. But I don’t find too much about the hard-working ground crews who maintained the planes so they would return safely to base after the day’s job was done. My dad’s photo collection focuses mainly on his fellow flight mechanics, and of course the planes they constantly took apart and put back together.
This post was original published as Memory Monday, Week 75, on July 16, 2018. This week, I’m starting in on the photos of my dad’s fellow servicemen — although unfortunately he didn’t record their names anywhere. And some of the prints are really tiny, like 2 x 2.75 inches. The majority though are 3.25 x 2.75 inches or 4.25 x 3 inches in size. Makes me remember how far print photography has come even during my lifetime! It’s great seeing images of the servicemen interacting with very happy local kids, especially considering that a mere 5 years earlier, our countries were at war with each other. Next week, I’ll have more posed photos like the ones below; again, I can’t identify these guys, but I’m sure they were excellent young servicemen!
This post was originally posted as Memory Monday, Week 74, on July 9, 2018. This week, a series of images from 1951 showing troops and planes on review for General Hutchison (or Hutchinson), the commanding officer of Johnson Air Base (now Iruma Air Base), Japan.