Pictures

We're preparing for the inevitable and while I was home, my mother asked me to go through pictures of my father so that we could make some sort of slide show of his life. Now I have a pile of pics to scan and there are so many that I may have to take them to some sort of place that does that type of thing.

It's funny to me how the pictures never tell the whole story. You need the dialog, the background, to go with them because with the camera in place we'll almost always put a face on to mark the occasion.

Here's my father looking serious while receiving an Army commendation medal.

The medals are given out for heroic acts, but I don't know the details, not from him anyway. His experience in Vietnam is something we aren't allowed to talk about. My mother knows some of it. I'll hold on to these pictures, but the memories are his to keep.

Here's the picture I like best.

It is a snapshot of the doll house that my father built from hand while waiting for my mother and I to join him in Germany. The roof is covered with hundreds of perfectly cut popsicle stick shingles and he made all of the furniture, including a little yellow terry covered easy chair and a fringed lamp fashioned from a plastic medicine cup. I played with it for years, but it wasn't sturdy enough to ship, so we had to leave it behind when we came back to the United States.

I'm glad someone thought to take a picture of it. My Dad, where I can fill in all the details.