PETRI FLEX V-KURIBAYASHI 55mm-F8-1/125th-ISO50 AGFACHROME
... beth, my sister-in-law, posted on facebook an old picture of my sister sue and i was reminded of this agfachrome slide i had tucked away waiting to be scanned ...
... sue and pa, playing around in the front yard of 1212a mango drive, our house on guam ... the little dog eating his fleas is named "dusty," i believe (probably a stray, my sister to homeless and wounded critters has always been like a magnet to iron filings) ... the yard is trimmed, per military base regulations ... the shrubs are a bit ragged, which leads me to believe that this picture was taken in the rainy season during which it was almost impossible to keep the growth trimmed back ... i'd guess that this is october or november of 1967 ...
... of course, what you can't see in this photograph are the thousands of giant african land snails which lived in holes in the lawn and under the bushes—during the wet season it was a daily chore to knock them from beneath the roof eaves—and the giant toads which had been introduced on the island to get rid of the snails, but were never really up to the task ...
... alison said to me, "how come you didn't get your dad's great smile" ... i've always wondered about that ... for sure, as we were all to so very sadly discover, he also hid his great sadness, and it could be there were times his magnificent grin was a tool he used more to encourage our happiness than express his own ... mostly, however, i think he was a man who as an adult retained the ability to allow his emotions to explode out ... one thing we never questioned was pa's mood ... now that i reflect upon it, however, that was perhaps not always such a good thing since it often allowed us to make assumptions which served our own very selfish needs ...
... still, after all these years, i do so miss his great smile ...