Eclectica by William J Reynolds: photos

Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Pictures of Fathers for Father's Day

(I still think it should be Fathers’ Day, but clearly I once again am swimming against the tide.)

Here’s a little something I cobbled together this morning: On the left we have a photo of my dad and his dad, Paul B. Reynolds, taken around 1967 at my grandfather’s house in Omaha. At top right, a photo of my mother’s dad, Carmine C. Caliendo, taken at his house in Omaha in, I would guess, the early 1960s. And at lower right, a photo of my dad’s grandfather, Samuel S. Reynolds, from a studio portrait made of his entire family in the early 1920s (judging from how young my grandfather looks in the same photo).

Somewhere in the mountains of photos I’ve lugged home from my parents’ house (and which, as Bob is my witless, I am going to get scanned and organized, somehow) I must have a photo of my dad’s other grandfather, William F. McGrail, and from my childhood I seem to recall a photo of my mom’s grandfather, Martino Caliendo, floating around, though I haven’t found it recently.

Anyhow, thanks, dads!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Bringing Grandpa Back to Life

Ha-ha, not really, of course. I mean, I'm good, but there are limits. I think.

Some weeks ago I came upon an old (circa 1954) snapshot of my paternal grandfather, Paul B. Reynolds. Since it was in an envelope with a letter he had sent to my dad stationed in Japan just after the Korean conflict, and since said letter reposed with scores of others in a box beneath Dad's workbench, where it probably had resided for the past 40 or 50 years, I was surprised at how faded and yellowed the snapshot was:

Clear enough for me to make out that it's the old gent, gone now nearly 23 years, and I know that it was taken at the gas station he owned on Saddle Creek Road in Omaha, Nebraska (Paul's "66" Service, which he subsequently sold, opening a small-engine shop on Center Street in the early 1960s), but not a very satisfying family relic. It may be that Dad had had it on display in a sunny location at Camp Eta Jima before putting it back in its envelope. Or it may just be that the chemicals are breaking down after half a century, without any help from the sun. In any event, I wished it could be better, and I wanted to share it with my brother. So I scanned it and slung it into Photoshop, and after a little bit of digital jiggery-poke here's what I walked away with:

A bit improved, I think, and far less likely to disintegrate before my eyes. Not a lot of detail, especially in the face, but despite what you see on the various crime and spy shows on TV, you really can't conjure up details that aren't in the original.

In my memory, my grandfather is always wearing either dark-green tweed work clothes like those he wears in this photo, or similar beige work duds. But never a cap like the one he's holding. Just the beat up old pith helmet he used to wear when he was working in his yard, but that's another story for another day.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A Lot of Candles

Today is the 103rd birthday of my grandfather Paul Bryan Reynolds, who died in 1987. I'm not sure why the date sticks with me--I would, for instance, have to look up the birthdates of my other grandparents--but it does, to the point that I realized signing a bunch of car-purchase papers three years ago that it was the old boy's 100th birthday. The memory is an odd thing.

Here's a couple of photos. The first, undated, is my grandfather as a young man. Looks like it might have been a work-related photo.

And here's one that I imagine was taken perhaps 25 years later, including, from left, Grandma Reynolds, Mom, Great-Grandma Reynolds, Grandpa, yours truly, and Dad. My guess is that it was taken in 1957.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go round up 103 birthday candles. And a lighter. One of those long-handled jobs, I think.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Some Time in New York City

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in New York City, there to bask in the glow of the Sioux Falls Lincoln High School Patriot Marching Band's lead position in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was a great week, with perfect weather (the one day it rained, we were scheduled to be at the Metropolitan Museum and on a bus tour anyhow, so it inconvenienced us not) and no mishaps worth mentioning.

I came home with 1,381 digital pictures. Many of them were duplicates--I like to shoot in burst mode on the theory that usually at least one of the two, three, five shots I squeeze off will be a keeper--so I pared that number down to 700 for the iPhoto album. And from that number I further whittled down to about 500 to share with family and friends. If you're interested, they start here: http://faculty.augie.edu/~reynolds/nyc/nyc.html.

Meanwhile, here's a small sampler:

The band approaches!