Today I came across a box of old letters from my dad to his parents from the 1960s. He was only 18 then and had just joined the Navy (during the Vietnam war). He hadn't been sent overseas yet, so there wasn't anything sad in the letters.
I love coming across things like this. LOVE IT. The past is so intriguing to me!
And I'm a person that always has these random, weird thoughts. Like how amazing it was to see the penmanship of my Grandma Helen. She passed away in 1999, but her writing, and the ink she used in 1968, lives on. I can hold a part of her in my hands.
And I also came across another box with old patches from my father's Navy career. One instantly caught my eye, then made me giggle. It had a picture of a chicken (reading a newspaper, of course) on a toilet. The top of the patch said "EVER SEE A CHICKENSHIT?"
hehe. 'Tis why my dad rocks. When I asked him about it, he said he had it sewn to the back of his work jacket until one of the senior cheifs made him take it off.
Maybe one day I'll be that cool.
i like this entry. a couple of weeks ago i found myself at my parent's house, watching the history channel with my dad. he began telling me story after story of his days as a gunners mate in vietnam. i had never heard them before. don't know why. for some reason the past seems so much more grand and relevant than the present when it's told through photographs and narrations. at least thats how it seemed.
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun looking through the past. Especially if it's family history, cause then you can make the connection and it's so much grander. Even the smallest things can become portals to a history you've never heard about before. I had such a great time cleaning my parent's basement. I found boxes upon boxes of old newspaper clippings about my dad. Apparently he was some kind of local sports hero in his home town. Someday I hope I can have a box of this kind of stuff to look through.
ReplyDeleteI used to love looking at old photo albums of my Mom and Dad's wedding, and old pictures of me and my sister as babies. It always feels vintage and loving.
ReplyDeleteAh, nothing says love like those old Sears Portraits with the autumn lighting with the tree and the tea coloring.
I stumbled upon one of my dad's old notebooks from his college classes in the early 1970s. Along with the standard info on biology, he also wrote a lot of poetry into the margins. I asked, "Dad, were you a hippie?" and he said, "No, just an incredible nerd."
ReplyDeleteAlso, you ARE cool, you just don't need sweet patches and stuff to show it :)
crazy! my mom and i were just looking over her old letters she wrote home from camp! :) it's soo weird! too see old pictures and letters! i enjoyed it! and i think the chicken shit thing is hilarious!!!! haha! where can i get one!!
ReplyDeletethat patch was hilarious ... kinda sounds like a good facebook bumpersticker :P
ReplyDeleteLooking through old stuff from your family like that is awesome! When my grandma passed away recently, we went to her house and went through a bunch of old letters, pictures and little nick-nacks. I found this letter that a distant relative of mine wrote about how the family migrated from Germany to Russia to Texas to Detroit. The way in which they were able to come over to America is almost unbelievable! haha
It's so great to learn about the past, especially when you realize that these genes that have been passed down to you from each generation might not have really changed all that much!
i totally found a little address book/calendar that my dad had when he was in the service- he wrote about the days that my mom was going to visit him... it was pretty amazing - I know how you feel
ReplyDelete