4 hankie post

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Handkerchiefs

I've had the handkerchiefs since my paternal grandmother died over 8 years ago. The handkerchief box belonged to my maternal grandmother. I came home with it just a few weeks ago, after my grandfather died. It seems lovely to me to be able to put the two together.

memory layers

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Angel girl

No, this is not some photo editing trick. Ladies and gentlemen (crickets??), this represents the first time I used a tripod, referred to my manual, AND played with the shutter speed and aperture. Basically, I set up my camera in front of my computer and took long exposure shots of multiple photos (a little trick I read about on Photojojo a while back. This week's memory prompt finally prompted me to DO it.)

I found that while my manual sort of told me HOW to adjust the shutter and aperture, it was pretty useless in terms of telling me how to read it, what the numbers meant, etc. Once I finally figured out how to get the shutter speed to the bulb setting, then I had to adjust for how much light the computer gave off. I knew that was aperture, but did I want a higher or a lower number? Thank God for google. I still have lots to learn, but I was finally able to get pretty close to my desired result. I think it would be fun to really pull together some great photos... like a baby photo and a current photo of my daughter (I actually went about trying to do this, and realized how precious few good pictures I have shot of her recently. Even with all my photo taking. So now I am on another mission.)

I did just peek through my facebook photos, and decided to try it with the four pictures I had in an album from when I did Proof:

Veteran's Day

My father in law (a WWII vet) and a friend of ours (Korean war vet) came to my daughter's class for Veteran's Day. The kids gave a brief presentation, then the men told a little about their service, and the kids asked questions. At the end, the class presented them with thank you cards and practiced shaking hands.

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Thanking the Vets

I learned some interesting things, like how the Navy pants can be quickly taken off in the water and used to trap air and become a flotation device. And that the collar on the back of their shirts is a design holdover from long ago, when the men would take their long hair and harden it into a ball with tar, and in hand to hand combat would swing their head and use the hardened hair ball as a weapon. The collar kept the tar off the blouse. The kids were, of course, FASCINATED with this little tidbit of info. Who can blame them?

The most important lesson though, I think, came when one boy asked if fighting in the army was fun. My father in law very quickly and emphatically replied "No."