Sunday, November 11, 2018

Veterans Day

A fifteen-year span between me on the left and my oldest brother on the right. What's with those see-through shirts in the middle?
Forgive me for sharing this 1956 or '57 era photo of my brothers and me, a stair-step arrangement that made me laugh. I'm supposed to be putting the finishing touches on my recycle bookbinding challenge project but I suddenly got a wild hair to do some slide scanning instead. Since getting the older carousels of slides from a brother in California, I've been doing a bit of picking and choosing trying to find specific ones to go with the next post on my family blog, sadly put on hold for far too long. This was getting me nowhere and I'd decided to put aside my tunnel vision and just scan the whole carousel. I soon found that while mom had written lots of information on some of them, most were blank, not even a date imprint from the processor. The above photograph is a prime example. Well, that shouldn't pose a big problem if these are placed in the carousel in order, as I was sure they were. Lots could be guessed by surrounding pictures with dates.

A snapshot of me decked out in part of my brother's uniform on the occasion of my third birthday.

As I switched from scanning mode to info adding mode, I discovered to my chagrin that the slides were not in order. My penchant for neat and tidy and sequential soon distracted me from the task at hand and I spent much time yesterday merely trying to sort the slides into chronological order. I can see that much detective work is left to figure out what and when a lot of these were taken by crosschecking albums of snapshots, letters, and a brother's keen memory. I'm on a mission to sort through all I have and make sense of it, adding a narrative for all who might be interested in our family history.

Waine Mahanke at Parks AFB

It has been nice to run across those pictures of my oldest brother in uniform, back in the late 1950's, now that it is the time when we remember the end to the first world war and especially honor all who have served in our military, men and women alike. One such veteran recently suggested that perhaps a better greeting to veterans than the currently popular "thank you for your service" would be "never forget". I liked that idea.

Two other brothers also served, plus one of their sons. You can read more about them in this post. Never forget.

3 comments:

The Inside Stori said...

I too would be consumed with organizing and recording those memories......what a wonderful project you have in the works!!

Anonymous said...

I think many in our generation have been facing the task of sorting through slides. It's a daunting task that needs to be done with not only our parents' slides, but also our own. Slides, roll up car windows & locks that push down & pull up...all completely unfamiliar to newer generations! Thanks for sharing your memories! Never forget. Jan in WY

Sherrie Spangler said...

Scanning our slides is something I need to do, but it sounds daunting. I love the photo of you and your brothers.