Of paper hats and legacies...

Caty, 6, asked me today to make her a paper hat, like the one in old storybooks, all pointy at the top and made from newspaper. Luckily for me, my father was having lunch here at that moment, and I sent her to him.

You see, before he became an academic and college president, my Dad worked in the journalism business too, starting as a copy boy at the old San Francisco Examiner (where I would later enjoy a photo internship) in the 1930s. When there, he learned how to make paper hats from the printing machinists, who would fold a double-page piece of broadsheet paper into a square hat to protect their hair from ink. It was always a small miracle to me to watch him make them when I was a child, and I thought it would be a double benefit for Caty to ask him for a hat: He'd be rewarded for his grandfatherly knowledge, and she'd be occupied and happy.

But the years have passed (he's 87 now) and it's been a while since anyone (me) asked for one of those hats. He had a hard time remembering.

Fortunately, I had preserved the last one I asked for. It hangs in a place of honor in my study, made from a yellowed, 14-year-old Commentary page of The Washington Times. I fetched it, brought it in and, from my memory of watching him make them and by carefully unfolding my treasure, figured out how it should be made.

Of course, with the internet, it's easy to find instructions on how to do ... well anything. But the idea of learning from living memory, not to mention family memory, to do something is special, I think.

Of course, there is one problem: how long before one won't be able to find a double-page piece of broadsheet newspaper?

Scenes from life...

Two new images, again because I can:

Here we see the cat in residence in a local bookstore, Books & Co.

This, I think, is a pretty good symbol for the pleasures of living in Lexington. The store has always had a cat about, a nice homey touch, but one that is hardly unique here. The antique dealer on the next block over, for example, brings his golden retrievers to work every day, where they sit outside the front door of his shop eagerly greeting passers by.

Also, this is one of two independently-owned bookstores in town ... within a block of each other. I wonder what the statistics are on book shop presence per capita, let alone two that are not chains. (One, by way of explanation, deals more in used books, while Books & Co. sells mostly new. Both, needless to say, carry our book, Rockbridge.)

Shot with my beloved Leica M3 and a 35mm f/2 on Kodak's BW400CN film.

This is the graduation ceremony for St. Patrick's Preschool, operated through our local Catholic church. Our youngest attends, but won't graduate to kindergarten herself for another two years. I enjoy this shot because it looks to me like the DaVinci Last Supper of kid mischief. (Adding to my amusement, in the background to the right is a wood carving of the famous DaVinci picture.)

Shot with a Nikon D80 and 17-55mm f/2.8 lens...

It makes a body think...

From the new Life.com site, a photograph made in 1939 by Hugo Jaeger, who worked as a personal photographer to Adolph Hitler. This is Hitler's Chancellery office in Berlin, and that's his hat casually dropped on the side table there.

The scary thing about this particular image (and really several of the others -- Jaeger saved some 2,000 transparencies after the war, many of which Life.com is publishing for the first time) is I could see this being something I would have shot, casually working in a government office with the officials around. Was Jaeger a Nazi? I don't know; the Life description of him makes him seem just a guy with a job. But it does cause one to think...

In one of the other captions, Life tells how taken Hitler was with the new color film (I'm assuming Agfachrome, though I suppose it could also have been Kodachrome). "The future belongs to color photography," Jaeger said Hitler told him. Hmmm....

Another view...

So, trying to be part of the 21st Century, I uploaded the fireworks stuff to my Facebook page as well as this blog, but I put this second photo, of my family watching the fireworks through our bedroom window, on Facebook only. I don't know why. It made perfect sense at the time.

However, as the day went by, not only did I keep getting comments from my Facebook friends about how much they loved it, but I found myself telling people I know who are not on Facebook about the picture. How could they see it? So...

That's Caty, far right, Janey, and Mommy watching, lit only by the light of the fireworks themselves in another 5-second exposure.

As an aside, I now find myself calling my wife "Mommy," Reagan-like, even when the kids are not there. I had trained myself to do it so the girls would identify her by "Mommy" -- just seemed like the right thing to do -- but it's now become so habitual that I can't stop. A bit difficult during preschool field trips, though, as every woman in hearing turns when I shout, "Mommy," not to mention those moments when no children are in sight.

Freudians would have a field day...

Oh, yeah, that again...

So, the mystery booms turn out to be fireworks again, this time for the undergraduate graduation at Washington & Lee University. Looks like it's in our front yard, doesn't it?

Shot with the Nikon D80, roughly a 4 or 5 second exposure (I changed about halfway through) at about f/4.5, ASA 400. I've set the camera on the floor of our porch, holding the lens slightly up with my fist...

About North Korea...

Okay, so I'm no Asia expert, but a thought occurred to me that I'm surprised no one has mentioned:

When North Korea detonated a nuclear test and then fired two ballistic missiles, followed by firing two short range missiles (one surface-to-air and one surface-to-sea), it wasn't just a random firing of whatever was laying around in the closet.  I think this is a statement -- a sentence with subject, verb and object (or rather, dependent clause) spoken in military hardware.

The nuclear test reenforced the fact that they have them, the ballistic missiles said that they can deliver them, and the short range missiles said you can't stop them.  

The first two points are obvious: Subject=atomic weapon, verb=delivered by missiles.  It's the third part that's interesting...

The current US design for anti-missile defense is either sea or air based (or controlled).  So the North Koreans fire a couple of missiles saying, "And if you try to stop us, we'll just blow up your fancy defense system."  It's a complete statement of power and capability, obvious if you read it right...

Of course, I'm no expert...

Coming soon to a mailbox...

For purely self-abusive reasons, I've been reviewing my old posts here (among other odd reactions, that little twitch I get at seeing "0 comments" over and over; at least I've gotten used to having 4 followers -- thanks guys!)

It's when I noticed an old post on writing an article for News Photographer magazine, the journal of the NPPA, on the recent decision to allow coverage of the return of war dead to Dover AFB.  Well, that piece is coming out this month, and I wanted again to mention the articles I found on the return of the first Unknown Soldier in 1921.  They won the Pulitzer for AP reporter Kirke :. Simpson and it's some of the most beautiful journalistic writing you're likely to see this side of Ernie Pyle.