It's pretty fun for me to get a glimpse into how my grandfather put together items in his scrapbooks. He generally starts off with some photos that identify his new surroundings, like buildings or points of interest. Here, he has photos of the tents at Mineola, and some shots, perhaps of his neighbors, or maybe just friends. In a recent post, I was able to identify Ralph Taylor as a friend of Ivan's. Ralph is on the right in the photo below, and so far I haven't identified the other gentleman. Ivan seems to have valued friendships and people. There are a lot of photos of people throughout the collection.
Here's a particularly nice old photo of the tents at Mineola after dark. I don't know about you, but this photo stands out to me like a scene from a movie. Crickets are singing, and off in the distance there's a guy playing guitar, or harmonica - maybe a phonograph. Laughter and camaraderie and a warm summer evening at camp.
There are more and more photos of guys clowning around as we move along, and here we see an early morning shot of Taylor (center) and a couple of other fliers in a goofy pose. The accouterments in this old photo are interesting. I can make out a couple of watering pots, a lantern, Taylor is holding a soda bottle and a cigarette, and the fellow on the right has a cane over his shoulder. Of course their hats are on backwards and sideways. Their attire fits the time of year, which would be summer of 1916. There are more of these types of shots in other albums as well. I think Ivan had some pretty fond memories of these days, judging by the numbers of this type of photo.
I have a six photo series of Happy Bagnell coming up next, which will finish this first album in the collection. You're going to love these, I promise.
-kpw
No comments:
Post a Comment