They’re leaving! If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is. And as metaphors go, this one is just fabulous. Those hulks have been part of the neighborhood scenery for way longer than the decade I’ve been here. The entire operation, from smashing in the roofs with a forklift, stacking the wrecks, and chaining [...]
family
AT-6 Texans in the background. Sunny Texas skies. Pearl Harbor hasn’t happened yet.
This is probably my favorite photo of him, taken at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas on his birthday in 1941. He doesn’t have his wings yet but he will just five months later, when he married my mother and it all began. That’s a 23-year-old Officer Candidate School flight cadet you’re looking at, and Jesus, [...]
Speed kills
Another phone call from darkest Arizona, though I was glad at first. I hadn’t heard from the guy for months. Except for the fact that the few checks I sent got cashed, the last checks, out of my own pocket just to help him out, I wouldn’t have known he even was alive. The inheritance [...]
Here, let me just fix that for you
It sure is easier to praise some people when they’re dead. Not to be crude, but as a practical matter—when their bad side isn’t around to give you grief, you know? My aunt was an amazing, highly accomplished woman with friends all over the world. Independent when it wasn’t fashionable, she didn’t get married until [...]
Yes, I already thought of coneheads
Who are these people? I found this in the vast horde of uncataloged photos I rescued from my late Aunt Mary’s house in Maine. They look like long-ago relatives of mine—there must be some shared DNA—but I have no idea. Maybe my upstate New York kin? And look at that guy’s hands!—are those farmer hands [...]
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