Two more reads for the side bar -- First Family and Niagara Falls

Finished both these books in April but here is the commentary in May.  After Rove’s book I needed lighter reading. David Baldacci is one of my favorite story tellers and his First Family, published in 2009, was immensely satisfying. But then to me he has not written anything which I’ve read that I don’t enjoy. I don’t know how to classify the genre, other than the perfect blend of intrigue, mystery, suspense, a shade of romance, friendship, political or just good old reading this tale through the eyes of the private investigators, former Secret Service agency employees, whom the First Lady solicits for assistance when her niece is kidnapped. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, the investigators, find themselves back in the game but soon become suspicious of the First lady herself. Besides the main tale, there is a sideline with Michelle’s complicated family. Two tales in one, pure Baldacci. Nothing much more I can say about this so as to not reveal too much. This was another popular best seller by Baldacci; I wonder how he does it without resorting to outline comic book style writing which often happens with popular authors. I’d picked this up at a book sale, $1 for the hard cover, a bargain, and will now pass it along to the local library for their sale. It is excellent reading that kept me quickly turning the pages till the end at 449.


While I snagged no quotes to share, the style is so Baldacci, that any paragraph is exciting……for example page 6……..”Her face was in decent shape, she thought as she snatched a look in a mirror. It held the marks and creases of a woman who’d given birth multiple times and endured many political races. No human being could emerge unblemished after that. Whatever frailty you possessed the other side would find and stick a crowbar in to lever every useful scrap out. The press still referred to her as attractive. Some went out on a limb and described her as possessing movie star good looks. Maybe once, she knew but not anymore. She was definitely in the “character actress” stage of her career now. Still, she had progressed a long way from the days when firm cheekbones and a firmer backside were high on her list of priorities. “

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan presents an intriguing book cover, almost a sepia print of a woman at Niagara Falls in the 1800’s. It caught my eye and as Niagara Falls is one of my favorite places in the entire country I thought it worth the time to read. Written ala the Victorian style this first novel for Cathy, hints at imminent disaster by title alone. The historical sketches and text and old photos woven through this tale enhance the drama about Bess Heath, a young woman who spurns what would have been a “better” marriage for her attraction to a naturalist of sorts. It begins in 1915—the beginning of the harnessing of the hydroelectric power of the Falls and a time when the dare devils were shooting the rapids in barrels. Her sister Isabel has her own story going on and there is a family tragedy in the making. Her father has lost his prominent job and the family fortune is dwindling; her mother helps support the family as a seamstress and her father despite trying to keep up appearances begins drinking. It follows the dawn of the ready wear clothing and how that affects the seamstress industry. I loved the in depth descriptions of some of the hand sewing, the finery and the descriptive of the feel of the fabrics. It is a tribute to  hand work, sewing, WWI and the Canadian culture of that time.   It is not an all ends happily ever after tale and at times I thought it slow moving, but then some history of the region would evolve to return my interest.

Some of the writing is melancholy which became dreary but as I prevailed through the 298 pages I can say this was a different genre of reading for me, reminiscent of Louisa May Alcott and  the like and I learned something about writing by reading this.

Pg. 138, “..Grief isn’t something to get over…it stays with you, always…just not so raw….”

Pg. 151..”Every day there are moments when it feels like I’m met head on by meaninglessness.”

Pg. 215 ..”We all matter so very little, .. not at all after a generation or two….as Darwin put forth…”

Pg. 217…”Even now it seems a sort of bull headedness is chief among the traits necessary to prevail, a trait Isabel had in spades.”

Waiting for time to write

Busy time here and I will not have time to post but I do have some thoughts weaving around in my head, one on cocktails and high balls!  Magpie tales must take a back seat for some time now as outside gardening beckons me,  diminishing time for  the keyboard.  I am trying to stay with the Sepias though as  I have so many stories still to share. 

I will be posting my current reflections after my recent political experience participating as a delegate to the MN Republican state convention.  I have been to the belly of the beast and am more than disgusted with what I've encountered there.  Watching the changes in politics can be invigorating or disgusting.  The take back the party by the young agressives and the ultra right wingers is offensive at the best to me and absolutely offputting.  I believe most people are decent middle moderates, as I am. Extremism in any form is not welcoming. Which is worse ultra right or ultra left? 

 Well, I have enough to do with blogging, reading, gardening, working out, biking, dealing with elderly mother in law in town,  and getting ready to take our RV back to PA to check on my elderly uncle.   More later. Especially about the great  graduation party I attended Saturday here.   

Bill Austin SEPIA SATURDAY Week 21 Click here to link to others' posts

Bill Austin 1889-1956 


This is my Great Uncle Bill, another Ostrowski, my grandmother Rose’s brother and his wife, Louise in 1944.Check out his white shoes and she in heels. Sometime early in his life as happened all too often in those times Bill may have experienced discrimination toward the Polish because he changed his last name to Austin. Not only that he changed his first name from Walter F to William, no middle name or initial. I can only imagine what went through his head to do this but surely wish I knew the story to share here. Maybe it was just as simple as a wish to fully assimilate—as far as he was concerned he was American. Maybe the Polish last name did not match is idea of being an American. As if I do not have enough to deal with in my genealogy with the changing of the spelling of Ostrowski, Uncle Bill had to go further.

He was born to Frank Ostroski and his second wife, Frances Swartz in Detroit Michigan according to my research. But Frank and Frances moved on to the mines of PA and there they settled; Bill lived in the New Kensington, PA area all his life.

Well my grandma Rose did not care if changed his name to “Yehudi” as she would say; he was her brother and that was that, though she thought it was very silly. When I was learning to spell, I asked her if the name change was because Ostrowski was just too hard to spell , to which she said that Uncle Bill was educated and could read, write and spell. I do not know what schools he attended, or how far he went in school, but she recalled he was the smartest boy in the family. I remember going to visit with my grandmother and my Aunt Virginia to the Anderson St. house where Bill and his wife Louise lived all their life and where she stayed after his death. I was fascinated with that area of our town known as Parnassus, and I imagined that Parnassus was a mythical name. Bill and Louise had no children and so far I do not know Louise’s maiden name. I know that she was my godmother, so identified on my Baptismal Certificate.

I enjoyed our visits to Uncle Bill and Aunt Louise because she always made fresh cold lemonade or freshly squeezed orange juice. My Grandmother would tell her not to bother that we only had a short time to spend, but that was Louise’s hospitality. Louise always had glasses being iced in the refrigerator, so they would be cold; this fascinated me, something no one else did. And more remarkable, Louise lined the glass rims with sugar and served proudly to each of us, even me the kid with gorgeous linen and crochet coasters. Mostly grandma made sure that Bill knew about family events, so anytime anyone had a new addition to the family, a baptism, a confirmation, a graduation whatever, my grandma would visit Bill. I never understood why she didn’t just call him on the phone, but suppose that was her way of being sure that her brother heard the news and would attend the upcoming event. I don’t recall him coming to many of the family gatherings or if he did it was just brief. Perhaps the others were not pleased with his Americanization attempt; my family were all proud of their Polishness.

I found his WWII draft card on ancestry.com showng his residence as the Anderson Street address. At that time he was still using the name Walter Ostrowski. But I learned something else from that. I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog that I grew up very close with my grandmother, she and I went to the movies every Sunday. In our small town which thrived in the days of the steel mills and the Alcoa Plant, there were three movie theaters. And some Sunday’s she and I would go to two of the theaters.   But we always went to the Liberty first, sometimes they were not showing a movie I preferred, I really liked cowboys and Indians in Technicolor so we had to take in one of those. I found this clipping about Uncle Bill in my grandma’s collection which shows that was his employment; evidently he loaded the films and ran them. This was a newsclip which I love showing the old equipment.  It explains why we always went there first, no matter what was on. I imagine we got free passes. On his WWII draft card Warner Brothers is identified as the owner of the theater, formerly known as the Ritz. I’d thought our three theaters were independently owned. Interesting to learn that Warner Brothers owned theaters across the country and in our little town in PA. This is my limited information about Uncle Bill and Aunt Louise for our  21st week of Sepia posts.

Week 20 Sepia Saturday My 2nd cousins Roginski's (Click here to go to other Sepia Sat. Posts)

How can it already be  Week 20!   I know I was a late joiner, but the time has really gone along.   This photo is of the children of Great Aunt Veronica Ostrowski (my grandmother’s sister) and Alex Roginsky. I assume this photo was taken approximately 1900’s. What puzzles me is that it shows done by a company out of Chicago, IL and the family lived in PA always far as I know.  The children, all so serious appearing to have the same  barber which was likely Mom's bowl at home, are on the pony, (which also looks serious) Frank and Helen, and then standing left to right August  and Alex. The names are familiar in the Ostrowski line, another Frank (my grandmother’s father) and a Helen (my mother’s name too.) There go the repetitive use of the names. I wonder if it was incumbent on the Polish to name their first born after the maternal father? I believe there was another daughter in this family, Loretta, who may not have yet been born when this was taken.

The only person I recall is Augie, (August). When my Mom died in 2004 Auggie came to the funeral home and wanted to see me as much as anything; this annoyed my jealous evil half brother and his wife to no end, because Auggie arrived at the funeral parlour announcing loudly, “Is Patty here, I want to see Patty!” it was a treat to visit with him and hear his stories including how he was corresponding with an Ostrowski somewhere in Australia and thought he should go visit. Only problem was the person wrote to him in Polish and Augie’s Polish skills did not include reading, so he had to get the letters translated. Augie had  several health problems but still had the funny streak and found  a light hearted story everywhere.  I love that trait of the family.

Augie was in his late 80’s at the time and was annoyed because he could no longer drive his big Cadillac; in fact his kids had to stop him from driving period. Never easy but something we have to do for the safety of others as well as the elders. I heard that since then he had to move from his home in Springdale, Harmar Twshp. PA across the river to be with his son and wife or perhaps it was daughter and son-in-law.

When my aunt Virginia, his cousin died, I heard nothing from him. I do not know if Augie is still alive or not. None of the other Roginski’s are alive to my knowledge. This is another limb on the family tree that has stopped growing unless there are some descendants out there somewhere.

I found these photos in my grandmother's collection.  This last is from the 1940's sometime, noted as taken during one of Frank's furlough's.  Oh but the soldier is another 2nd  cousin, Frank Janosky and his wife who sent this photo calling herself "the blur in the middle" while Alex Roginski is shown on the left.  Typical of so many in the family they needed no chairs, simply squatted and posed.  That does not seem comfortable to me.

The Cinderella Pact (Click here to get to author's blog)

After Rove’s book, I needed light reading which I found in the girlie chick book, “The Cinderella Pact” by Sarah Strohmeyer. I had previously read her “The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives” which I reviewed on this blog on February 11, 2009, (  find it at http://patonlinenewtime.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-winter-readings.html  )  however, I was not impressed with that book and thought that I would never read anything by her again, but I was wrong.

Sarah is one of the writers on the Lipstick Chronicles blog that I follow with relish and glee.....  a group of women mostly mystery writers.    You can check it out at  http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/the_lipstick_chronicles/    Besides that she has her own blog  which you can get to  by clicking on the title to this post.    Those are quite enough blog backs for one review. 

  After I read her essay explaining Cinderella which was my all time favorite fairy story, I thought maybe I would enjoy her Cinderella Pact. I wasn’t making the connection with my earlier read, one reason why I have committed to posting my reads on my blog, to track what I like and not, etc. When I saw this book in Barnes and Noble, I also spotted the previous one which made me a bit tentative to this purchase. But what the heck, writers can change, there are different likes and  dislikes depending on moods of readers (especially me) and not everything I write is accepted or liked by everyone or even myself at the same time either.

I enjoyed this book and breezed through it in a few evenings. There is no deep engaging thought or plot, merely a cute, amusing story and that was sufficient for me this time. The introduction is 10 ways to indulge your inner Cinderella; my favorite is “Act like Cinderella. Trill while you do dishes. Invite birds to sit on your fingers, chipmunks to nestle in the folds of your skirts. Do not mind that the neighbors have called your relatives expressing concern. Pity them for they know not that you are a woman of noble birth, kept captive among commoners.” Set in Princeton (Pg. 1) “a magical kingdom with shady tree lined streets and at its center a big castle of a university….,” Nola Devlin, the main character is an overweight editor at Sass magazine who creates the wonderful character of Belinda Apple. Irony pervades as the honchos at Sass contract with Belinda as their feature columnist and Nola as her editor. Nola keeps this deep secret till the end forces her hand and then those who suspected chime, “Oh I knew it all along!” There are several comical happenings as Nola keeps on creating. With her two close friends Nancy and Deb, she enters into a Cinderella Pact to lose weight. Oh haven’t all of us done this with friends and without as we battle our bulges!

I can’t spoil the story but true to Cinderella the book culminates in a grand ball, a sort of fairy Godmother, a prince in waiting, and everyone lives happily ever after. There are no wicked step sisters, sisty uglers, but there is Nola’s very own full sister who also adores Belinda and who through her own choices could qualify as a sisty ugler. This book is about daydreaming and fantasies while working and living life. Her opening line, “We are all Cinderella’s, no matter what our size” grabbed me as well as Belinda’s Guide to Indulging Your Inner Cinderella.

I liked a couple of lines in particular, pg. 43—“daydreaming, the refuge of worry warts” and pg. 45, “buying things because life is short.” That buying and treating self was one of my mantras during my career; a bad meeting sent me right to the mall at lunch time for a purchase of clothing, shoes, cosmetics, didn’t matter. But the most philosophical is on pg. 318, “Why I love life. You come for the love. You stay for the irony!”

This book has been made into a TV Movie on Lifetime, as “Lying to be Perfect.” I will pass this book along to friends to enjoy. It’s a great lose yourself here chic book!

My whimsical blue bottle garden

Sometime back on our travels I noticed somewhere in Arkansas or Louisiana several bottles in a yard on sticks and in the ground as garden art. I think there was a sign "Grandma's bottle garden." I thought it looked cool and always planned to do that someday. I had been saving blue wine bottles for this purpose. But most of the wines I prefer Chardonnay, Pinot noir, merlot, pinot grizio do not come in blue bottles, so progress was slow. And then like many of my ideas, I forgot about it. But I did have these five bottles setting awaiting their spot outside. Jerry thought this was another dumb idea and ignored it as he can do so easily when he is uninterested in my antics.

This week on my pedaling around town voila, someone had beat me to it and had  a display of  arrays of wine bottles of all colors in groupings on their front flower border and near the street on the mowing strip. I pedaled over and got off my bike to take a look recalling, this is something I intended to do and had not gotten around to. Whoever lives there on Main St. right off Maple in town is selling these wine bottle arrangements with dowels for $20 for six and on up, $40 for six blue bottles. Something is wrong here, that is an empty wine bottle!  Who would have thought anyone would buy that? 

Now, I am way ahead of this, I do not need to buy wine bottles, because that is my almost daily beverage of choice and I can empty those easily while enjoying its medicinal effects. I was curious about how they mounted the bottles and if they had soldered them to the dowel. Closer exam showed they only stuck the bottle atop the stick. And I was fixated on how to anchor the bottles onto something so they would not shatter in the winds. There was one quite lovely potted arrangement with white rocks over the top of the pot for $40 as well. No one was home because their little sign by the bottles said, to leave money in the mailbox to purchase them. See here in “Mayberry” we do such things and expect people to be honest. It’s a good place to live. I would have liked to talk to whoever was doing this and offer a supply of future bottles to them, but no one around. I thought they looked way cool and put that on my to do list for this week. So today I sent Jerry scrounging to the garage below and he found 4 fiberglass dowels, one short of my need. But I found an old wooden spoon I'd saved fpr dirt work, burying the spoon into the dirt gave me another dowel.

In a spot outside the bedroom closet window along the front my blue bottle garden is now in bloom. Jerry is still shaking his head, but I feel I accomplished something unique. And what a good way for me to contribute to Earth Week, recycling my own wine bottles. Well I do separate and set them into recycle anyway, but this use is right up my alley. I now will begin to save my other green and tan wine bottles for a bottle garden out back! Just what I needed another reason to open a bottle of wine! And think of it, drought tolerant and never need to fertilize.  A winning arrangement for sure!

Magpie Tales Week 10 (Click here to link to others posts)

Tonette parked her car and raced up the walkway to the big house, hair flying behind her, heels clicking on the concrete, steeling herself for the comments that would spew toward her as soon as she opened the door, comments peppered with the sarcasm that came so naturally to her mother. Time’s tenacious tentacles had her in their grasp again. Oh someone would say, “So glad you could join us” and the tempo of pleasantries would arise, settling down the torrent of accusations that were bound to come later… another commentary about being on time.

Tonette tried, she really did, but tempus fugit was not her friend, tempus FU was more like it.  She was absolutely inept at being on time. Inept, there was one of those words that came at her out of her mind, remnants from years of Mom’s commentary. Despite all the self help books she had studied, despite all the positive vibes she sent herself, Tonette still was plagued by nagging critical diatribe that fell like rain every time she visited Mom, the caustic words burrowing deep into her. Time would diminish the sting but the sarcastic seeds entered her mind and soul and spread their roots, thriving like unwatered cacti, waiting to prick at her heart in unexpected moments.

Tonight she was already 30 minutes late for the gala that Mom and Floyd, her fourth husband, were hosting to introduce the newly elected Congressman to family and friends. For Tonette, a mandatory appearance at one of Mom’s events always conflicted with a late meeting at the office or with a new client who had to take just one more moment; why did she schedule so tightly sabotaging her own efforts. Time waits for no one, certainly not for Tonette.

The jazz quartet was playing “Time After Time” and Mom was dressed in glorious attire for the evening, gorgeous as always, gilded and sparkling, Congressman on one arm, crystal flute filled with champagne in her other hand, swishing through the crowd and raising one eyebrow toward Tonette. “Oh here she is my never timely daughter; let me introduce you…Tonette, Dear, so glad you made it! Where ever have you been this time? Don’t say, we can chat later!” Mom steered toward her. Tonette winced but just as quickly plastered a grin across her lips and tried to project a sparkle with her eyes. Time again, as though she enjoyed this.

The angry exchange would come four days later when she returned to the house to visit with Mom. Why did she do this to herself? This time the piercing of Mom’s shrill words was expected but still hurtful, “who do you think you are, you are impossible, can’t you be on time for once in your life, can’t you think of anyone else, can’t you plan? Buy a watch for God’s sake! Buy an alarm! With your entire staff of secretaries can’t one remind you to keep time…. Why is it asking so much ……” Tonette could not take it anymore and simply picked herself up, saying “Bye Mom, see you later I’m late for a client…”

Three days later, Tonette was moving along in quitting time traffic, as rapidly as she could, down the freeway to the hospital. The call came, as she was just about to leave for the day, “Tonette, your Mom’s been taken to St. Francis…. “Reeling into the lot as the clock on the dashboard ticked off minutes, and turning off the key, Tonette raced out the door and up the walkway to the entrance. Why do they build parking lots so far from the entrances of hospitals? Stopping ever so quickly at the directory Tonette saw ICU 4th floor and sped toward the bank of elevators where several people were waiting. As the elevator doors opened, and people exited, she entered with the others and pushed button 4. At the ICU desk, Tonette gave her name and the nurse directed her to the room, cautioning, “Only the briefest moment, now you don’t have much time to be with her, “As Tonette dashed for the room, she thought, this time I am not late…….”She entered the room and saw her mother, hooked to the respirator and IV tubes, but in her hands, a pocket watch……’ Floyd sat in the corner, head down, “Tonette, she doesn’t have much time……but she has been waiting for you…”

And this friends, has been my almost untimely whack at the prompt for the week....time and clocks and watches....how did we already come to week 10....Clocks and watches remind me of Aunt Jinx who wanted to be absolutely sure that when she  left this life, Jerry, not me, would take all the collection of grnad clocks...he did and has..I have a life long unmechanical ability that plagued me with timepieces  all my life.  I could make a watch stop just by putting it on my wrist.  It was not until the quartz watches hit the market that I could wear a wrist watch.  And so Aunt Jinx never wanted me to touch the antique clocks,  "stay away from them before you mess them up, you know how it is with you.....Too much magnetism" 

My Father Lewis S Ball Sepia Saturday 19 (Click here to visit others' on Sepia Saturday)

For this week I show a photo which I treasure, my father and my hero, Lt. Lewis S Ball and Combat Crew 193, First Air Force, First command 113th Army Air Force Base (Wing), D squadron, Unit Combat Crew 193, Charleston, South Carolina  

My father is standing, back row far left, hand in pocket, pilot, 2 Lt. Lewis S Ball, standing at the far right, Eugene de Palma, bombadier and Flight Officer; and Raymond Pachucki, front row 2nd on the left, radio operator. The other men are F/O Allyn A Pierce Harris Co., TX; F/O Allen Cantor Wayne Co, MI; Sgt. David R. Hackney Milwaukee Co. WI; Sgt. John P. Flynn NewYork Co, NY; Cpl. Calvin J. Arent Berrien Co, MI; Sgt. Charles V. Brewer ; Sgt. Theodore Hirsch Berrien Co., MI. Believe me I have searched and searched to find any trace of remaining families, etc.

This fatal flight would have been nearly the last flight before this crew would have shipped to England for the war effort. Although I have all the names of the men on this flight, from the accident reports and records I have obtained in my search for information over the years. I can match only three to the men in the photo. Just months ago I was contacted by the nephew of Eugene de Palma, bombardier and matched that name and face. Three years ago I was contacted by the niece of Raymond Pahucki and identified him in the photo.

I have written about my father other places on this blog, explaining how I never knew him. (See my sidebar for the blog posts in the heading "Somethings about my Father".)  He was a pilot in the US Army Air Corp and he and his entire crew disappeared on a flight that should have but never returned from Nassau, Bahamas to Charleston, SC. June 20, 1944, never a trace found of the plane or crew. I came to earth in November and he left that June, although he knew of my (or someone’s imminence).

I am one of what were 185,000appx. USA war orphans, so designated as "orphans"  by our government, those of us who lost our fathers in World War II. I belong to an organization known as the American World War II Orphans Network (AWON) and I have a tribute to my father on their website. If you want to read more you can access that at http://www.awon.org/awball.html     It  was not until after 2004 and my increased activity in searching for and finding information that I began to really talk abou my dad. All my years growing up there was no discussion; I thought my family was wierd but I learned that was the way of that generation, silence, all too frequently.  One of my AWON colleagues has written a poem, "The Wall of Silence" which describes those feelings.   I hold deep gratitude to AWON for uniting me with others who clearly understood how different we were and for removing that reluctance to mention.  Even today sometimes people's eyes glaze over, they don't want to hear nor to listen, but I think Sepia Readers might be interested in just a sliver of this history.   

Louie, as he was called, was born April 3, 1922 to Frank Ball and Anna Kudzia Ball in Harwick, PA, the middle of three sons. They were a stalwart Polish family and devout Roman Catholics. Louie was a Boy Scout and a member of the championship first aid team of PA. Louie worked at Duquesne Light Company, Harwick mine before enlisting in the Army, against the wishes of his mother. I was told by Uncle Henry  and others that my father was exceptionally smart and that he was the favorite son.  They say Louie had the best sense of humor and was full of fun. The  3 brothers are in this photo Eddie, Henry and Louie.  I remember very little of Frank Ball, my father's father who died when I was maybe  7 years old.  I had infrequent contact with my grandmother Anna Ball. 
Lewis (Lou)  and my mother, Helen Pauline Konesky married at Maxwell Field, AL June 12, 1943; this is their wedding picture.  This was to the consternation of his mother, my Grandmother Anna Ball who was adamant that the eldest son, (Louie’s brother Edward who was also off in the Army) should have married first.  Perhaps if Louie had lived Anna would have accepted Helen and Helen would have  gotten along with Anna.  I like to think that.  There are many reasons for the bad blood between my mother, the surviving widow who remarried, and my Grandmother Ball, grieving mother who went to her grave at 80 still believing that someday Louie would be found and come home. For these and other reasons I hardly knew my father’s family even though we lived close in PA. I was blessed though to have contact with Uncle Henry and his family( my father’s baby brother) who lived in CA as we did; we lost Uncle Henry in 2008. Today again thanks to the internet and my AWON tribute, I am in contact with my cousins, daughters of Uncle Eddie after years of silence. It is interesting to hear what they know of Grandma Ball.   The photo below was taken sometime in early 1944 with my Dad home for a short leave:Left to right, Henry,Mother Anna, Lou, and Frank Ball.  My grandmother Anna gave me this old photo when I left for California so long ago.

But for this Sepia Saturday the photos will suffice. I have assembled a huge scrapbook about my father and am working on a memoir about my life growing up and surviving without a father, never knowing anyone else like me until I joined AWON in 1990’s, always wondering what if, and yet not having many answers until my mom died in 2004 and we found a suitcase full of letters and paperwork. But as I said this is not my story this Sepia, this is only to share some photos of my dad.

Dad was stationed for a time at Ft. McCoy, WI, not far from where we live today. I am amazed when I trace his steps and see the same places today that he saw so may years ago.  He loved to take photographs and in that suitcase in Mom’s closet I found this one taken in February 1943 outside their barracks at Ft. McCoy. It was developed across the river here in La Crosse, WI.  These are 4 of  dad's friends in his writing left to right, Tony, Jackson, Joe, Jerry,  Looks like they are all enjoying a smoke!  And here outside the barracks  also at Ft. McCoy, prior to the time he  left for pilot training, Lou (my dad) and Jobe.  No last names and no way to identify these men. 
I close this post with a quote from one of my father's pilot training books.  It was a dedication to the brave men who were pilots during that siege of a time, warning them that they were not immortal and what might be ahead.  I use this line every time I post something about my dad---... their memory becomes a treasure...he holds the sky...