Back in 1947, the debris from World War II had begun to settle in bucolic Bavaria when this little duck family waddled out to a lake in Furstenfeldbruck, home to a giant air base.

RichardQ - Glad to be back.

Military Government office in Berchtesgaden - 1946
Every German adult had to fill out a Fragebogen questionaire for the Military Government of the American Army during 1945 to 1949. Only two American families, that were served by this office, lived in Berchtesgaden.
RichardQ

A temple to travel - Main train station in Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1961
RichardQ

P 26 Tim, the first print is especially gorgeous! And the presentation is very clever INHO!

Back in 1949 - 1952 I was an art school struggler on the GI Bill. so my photography efforts were of little interest to my graphic arts professors I set up an enlarger in one bedroom (my wife was thrilled -- ha!) so I could earn extra cash shooting school activities and selling prints to fellow students at 50 cents per. Then an accident insurance investigator started giving me assignments and I had to print up invoices (!) bearing my name and address. This photo came from one of those jobs, involving a crane accident and a lawsuit. For my own amusement afterward, I sandwiched two negatives in the enlarger and this was the result. I soon produced a flock of manipulated images of all sorts as I experimented with print solarizaton, negative solarization, infra-red films, etc. The school office got a call one day from LIFE magazine advising them that I had won a prize in a contest for young photographers. Suddenly I was on the school's radar, and I was asked to put up a display of my works in the school's main hallway. The top professor was so impressed that he graciously asked me to donate the best stuff to the school, since I was going to graduate soon. After all, I could recreate them, right? Wrong! I became so busy at work that I never again had the time or set-up to tinker with solarization, double-exposures, etc.

Thank you for the flattery, Judy, but I can't compete with the dynamite images produced by today's digita; equipment. The bird and insect shots. Wow! William's dazzling constructions. Double Wow! Simon's artistry in twisting the ordinary into other-worldly images. OMG! All I can offer is sentiment.

Thank you, Tim, for your comment and especially the three smilies. I went from that Packard to a VW Beetle in West Germany. The gas there was literally highway robbery.

This little Alpine church is located in the Upper Bavarian (Oberbayern) village of Wallgau. I shot it from three sides in 1962, using a medium format (2-1/4 x 2-1/4 inch negatives) roll-film Automatic Rolleiflex with a 75-mm Zeiss Planar lens and Kodak Tri-X film.

This was my first true car, bought used from the main Packard dealer in Manhattan. The "T" plates indicated it had been used as a rental limo so the interior was great. It was a 1953 Packard Patrician 400, inline-8, automatic transmission, (of course, no AC or elec. windows). It was the second-last Packard designed by Briggs Cunningham. My kids loved the spacious rear seat, and my wife easily drove it (alone, through NYC traffic, to airports and even Jones Beach with the kids in summer when I was away on assignments). Gas was only 27.9 cents/gallon.

Beethoven's magnificent Symphony No. 9 is a "10" on the list of most classical music connoisseurs. I'm happy to submit it for your inclusion as a Challenger. But I'm not going to "hog" this post by listing all the musical "9th" works by other composers. If any fellow Hoggers are stymied in searching for a 9, I suggest looking through the works of other musical geniuses. The pickin's are easy!

An additional comment on the "English" measurement system: NASA stubbornly refused to completely accept metrics, so in 1999 they lost the $125 million Mars Orbitor when it flew too close to the planet's surface. Two interlinked systems controlling the speed and altitude were constructed by different contractors, one using kilometers while the other employed miles. The machine came within 60 kilometers (36 miles) far too close and was sucked in by gravity. Then it was revealed that NASA continued to deploy both metric and English systems, including on the International Space Station, although they finally decided to focus only on metric for the future shared lunar surface habitat because the Russian wrenches could not be used for any repairs of leaky air locks. Apparently the National Rifle Association has trained agents for the protection of our "Miles Are American!" promoters.

Oh, Pat! Look at your camera for an example of sneaky metrics! Time was when focal lengths were measured in inches, but no more. Today, the U.S. military uses metrics exclusively. Check your milk and beer and whiskey and soda containers -- the contents are measured in both metric and U.S. for volume and weight, just for the convenience of customers, but the manufacturers are keyed to the metrics. In fact, the entire world, except for some Americans, accepted the metric system long ago. P.S.: Family recipes carried over generations don't count.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States aircraft industry faced a dramatic shortage of aluminum for aircraft production. American school children nationwide added tin can collection to their reading, writing and arithmetic. By early 1942 they were delivering tons of critically needed raw materials. These kids in Allentown, Pennsylvania proudly posed with part of their continuing collections, with little Dorothea Miller the champion with 9,935 cans! That's valid patriotism!

A reminder that sometimes the ability to read (and write!) a foreign language is a matter of life or death, especially if you are traveling through countries experiencing rebellion or banditry. Not everybody speaks English!

Read it or die !


Reading and writing sometimes demands multi-lingual capabilities

These two silhouettes are from my private archives. I wish I could continue to capture more, but I can't even hold a camera any more due to the advanced rheumatoid arthritis in my hands -- the penalty for my 92 years of survival! But I wouldn't surrender any of those years, especially since I enjoy sharing my memories with my fellow Hoggers. Thank you all for the privilege.

Lakeside dreamer - Bavaria, 1947


Waiting - Bavaria, 1961