THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

My niece and nephews were coming down for an Easter egg hunt, so that gave my brother, his wife and me an excuse to color some eggs for the first time since our own childhood. I made a caricature of my brother, another that was supposed to look like the Western Hemisphere, and at the bottom center in a sort of holiday mashup, an homage to one of our favorite vintage Christmas tree ornaments. The brown ones were made via the traditional onion skin method and some forgotten arcane process produced the blue-and-white mottled jobs. Paste-on printed features from an egg-dyeing kit are on two, and two more are named for their creators. All posed against the lawn at the family home in Idyllic Larkspur™, California and immortalized by me with this Polaroid snapshot. View full size.

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From a box of family photos on glass purchased in England, along with a magic lantern projector.

The photo was taken in south Philadelphia on Castle Ave. in front of my grandfather's house. The car is a Plymouth and I believe it is a 1939 model. One day my father was angry at me for playing with the manual choke and stalling out the car. Funny how that still sticks in my mind. I was only 2 years old at that time.

This is a 1950s Kodachrome stereo slide I bought some years ago, similar to the recent photo of Native Americans fishing in Oregon. Free viewing to see the 3D isn't difficult and worth doing to get the sense of action. This lot also included stereo slides of Glen Canyon dam under construction.

1961 (approx) Brownsburg, Indiana at our ancestral farm house. I'm the boy in the sweater. My sister is to my left and three of our cousins are pictured along with their mother playing the piano. I also see Grandma reflected in the window. My Dad was the photographer.

Singing carols at the farm house was a highlight of the holiday family gathering and welded for all time the emotions of Christmas to Christmas music for me.

New Years Eve 1951, Port Washington NY in my uncle's basement. That's mom seated 2nd from left. My big sister (their first of five children) was born 3 months later. Dad took the photo. Evidently this party was a humdinger from the other photos taken that night.

A photo from my wife's family. Probably shot in Oregon. From the 1940s or 50s judging from the refrigerator.

The Burns kids visit the Carpenters in North Vancouver, B.C. for an outdoor birthday party in 1957.

The Burns children are ready for a swim at the family cabin at Pender Harbour, B.C. in 1958.

Johnnie's bar, circa 1935, Taylor, Texas (Johnnie is the man on the right behind the bar).

Me and my "Irish twin" brother Tom at my Grandmother's house in South Saint Louis, near Meramac and Grand. Easter, 1955

Think we weren't rough on our shoes?

My paternal grandfather (standing, far left) spent quite a lot of his life crewing on square-rigged ships (also known as "windjammers") out of San Francisco. These ships were owned and operated by Alaska Packers, which was a division of the Del Monte Corp (aka the California Packing Corporation). The company had a small fleet of these ships and they were involved in the salmon canning industry in Alaska. Outbound from San Francisco, they hauled up supplies for the canneries. On the return, they'd bring finished goods to San Francisco for eventual labeling and sale to retailer grocers.

Although steam had largely replaced wind powered ships by the turn of the 20th century, Del Monte found it more economical to sail these old steel hulled sailing vessels up and down the Pacific coast.

Found these pictures in my parents photo album. I have no idea who the people are. Thought others would get a kick out of seeing them.

Fort Dix, 1917. That's my 5'2" grandfather prior to being shipped over to France as part of the Allied Expedition Force.

While there, he won a boxing medal and was subsequently caught in a mustard gas attack. He lived for another 52 years with seared lungs and had to expectorate into the ever-present paper sack that he carried with him.