Form letter from the US Navy to my Great-Grandpa upon my Grandpa’s entry into the Navy, and subsequent placement on the USS Arizona.

Taken around 1918, this is a shot of the kids of the men who worked in the oil field where my Grandpa grew up.  My Grandpa is the little blonde boy, front and center, with the dark overalls.

Check out the larger size for some better detail.

A view from the deck of the USS Saratoga as crew apply a fresh coat of paint on its stack.  This photo was taken by my Grandpa during his time stationed aboard the USS Arizona in the mid to late 1930s.  I believe this photo was snapped in 1938 or 1939.

This is one of the scans from the Kodak Wallet I posted about a while back. Taken most likely in the early 1950s, before my mother was born.  This is my Grandpa next to his trailer.  I’m very certain this photo was taken on a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, particularly around the Tahquamenon Falls area.

Another shot from my Grandpa’s archives.  I’m pretty sure this was taken at the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego.  I wonder if those sailors were shipmates of my gramp?

Another photo from my Grandpa’s navy days aboard the USS Arizona.

Pictured is a barge carrying train cars in the San Francisco Bay.  Also pictured some variety of Navy ship.  In the far background are towers belonging to the Oakland Bay Bridge which was being built at the time.  This photo probably dates to 1935.

My Great Great Grandpa’s photo, taken by my Grandpa in the mid-1930’s.

Today is December 7th.  69 years ago the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in what became our call to join the second world war.

My Grandpa took this photo during his time stationed on the USS Arizona. Every time I look at this set of photos I wonder how many of these men were still on the Arizona at the time of the bombing, how many survived, and how many of them were killed that very day.

When my grandfather passed away several years ago, he left quite a bunch of stuff behind.  He was definitely a packrat; an organized packrat, but a packrat nonetheless.

In one of the many boxes were a few photo albums I’d never seen before.  One in particular contained photos from his time aboard the USS Arizona, pre Pearl Harbor.  The crew goofing off, salty old-school Navy lifers, that kind of thing; pretty significant photos considering the fated setting.

Eventually I’ll share some of those here, but first I need to do more research on them.

For now, I’ll leave you with this photo that was in the same album.  I have no idea who these fellas are.  The back of the photo is inscribed:

This was taken at Pacific Beach on the Washington Oregon coast.  You have met the two gentlemen in the picture.

Red 

Check out that 1936 Plymouth Sedan, cost all of $700 new back then.  And check out that dapper three-piece suit on the guy on left.  I wonder who these guys were, and what their story is.

My grandfather was chemical engineer for an oil company back in the early 1940s, I believe, until he retired.  His job required him to travel all over the world and help get refineries set up, sometimes leaving my grandmother and my mother back in the states though they lived abroad with him quite often.  He was a frequent letter writer, as many people were back then before the internet and cheap international phone fees.

One of the things he and my grandmother would do is keep the stamps on the airmail they’d accumulate.  When he died I collected up a bunch of the things he collected which includes paper money and coins but also includes this big cache of world stamps.

I scanned the contents of a small book of stamps the other day and I’m trying to figure out what to do with them.  Maybe when I finish scanning all of em I’ll put them up on Flickr or something.  But for now they will reside on my computer.  I’ll share a few of them here on Tumblr, so expect to see some stamp related posts in the future.

Now, this particular stamp above is one from a series of stamps from the former Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in the early 60’s.  Out of many of the stamps I scanned, these Czech stamps I think are my favorite.  The content is particularly interesting; seeing the glorification of the space race from the communist side of things is actually pretty cool.  The quality of the artwork is just superb as well.

I’ll save my absolute favorite for another day, but for now, this is a pretty good one to get into things with.