Old Black and Whites

I love old photographs... all old photographs. Here are a few of my favorites:

This is my dad when he was in the army during World War II. He wasn't a very driven soldier and ended up doing KP a lot. The army actually lost his papers for a few months and he never spoke up that he needed something to do! He was actually demoted from PFC back to a Private.

This is some of my family in front of the Brownstone in Brooklyn, NY that my Uncle Willy and Aunt Emily owned. My Aunt Emily is the second from the right holding her daughter, my cousin Joanne. My Uncle Ralph is the one in the Army uniform. He must have been on leave during World War II.

This is a photo of my Aunt Ann. She was married to my dad's brother. I really like how shiny my uncle's car was and love the reflection of the people on the side of the car.

My mom and six of her friends were looking out the back window of a Newark, NJ city bus while someone took this photograph. My mom is the one in the very center. She must have been about sixteen years old. I love how the telephone numbers can still be seen. When I was a kid, the first two letters of a telephone number was first two letters of the exchange. The exchange in Newark was HUmboldt. It was my exchange too. This is my favorite old photograph.

My sister and I were dressed up for something here; I'm not sure what it was. The car that we were standing in front of was my dad's 1957 Ford Fairlane... it was a cool car. We lived in a four family house on a street in Newark, NJ with connecting yards. I used to ride my bicycle through the yards and hit the clothes on the clotheslines as I went through them. I remember the smell of the freshly laundered clothes and I remember getting yelled at by the little Italian women in the houses for riding through their clothes. I guess I was about six years old here, so that would make it about 1962.

Thanks for looking at some of my favorite old photographs. I always get such a sense of history when I look at any old photograph. I love to imagine what was happening at that instant in time when the photographer clicked the shutter. It is a moment in history. I'll share more as I keep blogging.