To continue extract from Rusty’s letter to Ced: “Charles Brown had me over for dinner the day after we landed. Most interesting old timer in the whole territory. First painting will be of him and that one I will keep for myself. Then we’ll have to get down to making bread and butter money or go on Eskimo diet. Eskimos on the way said I was the only white man they had ever seen take to all their food and like it. Ate walrus blubber by the pound, meat dipped in seal oil, dried fish and seal oil and even soured walrus flippers. The latter dish is a rare one but was bound to try it to see if my stomach could digest it. This dainty dish is apt to knot up any white man’s stomach if not poison him. If soured by the sunshine it poisons even the Eskimos…

Freckles by Cecelia Ahern

Allegra Bird is known by many people as Freckles – her Spanish mother may have passed other things on to her, but her father gave her freckles. She has made the most of them in a way, compulsively drawing between five of them on her arm, scratching her skin as a girl at boarding school, consolations of stars scarred on her arm. Now, as an adult with some issues communicating with other humans, they make her different, along with several other things such as her job as a parking warden in a settlement on the edge of Dublin. Her rule keeping, her regular routines and secrets, surprises and twists make this a very enjoyable and engaging novel.

The main element is that Freckles, who narrates her own story, is told that everyone is shaped by five people, the five people who one spends most time with…

A Sailor’s Odyssey: At Peace and at War 1935-1945

By Alvin P. Chester

Hardcover in dustjacket, 288 pages, photographs

Published by Odysseus Books, January 1991

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0-9631239-0-4

Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.0 x 9.0 inches

Prior to World War Two the way things moved between the continents was by ship. Crossing the Atlantic between the United States and Europe were several competing shipping lines offering regular service to various ports of call. The majority of ships carried both cargo and passengers, who often counted diplomats and celebrities among their ranks. Dining with the Captain was a mark of social status, and the Captain and his officers were held in some esteem by society.

Al Chester entered this world as a cadet in the New York State Merchant Marine Academy in 1933. Upon graduation in 1935, he began serving on a variety of merchant vessels as a nineteen-year-old Officer Cadet…

Unfortunately, I do not remember which island this story occurred on.

Smitty did not write home about his experience with the showers. .. BUT,

He was coming back into camp after having a nice cold shower.  He walked back with a towel wrapped around his middle and held it closed with his left hand.  The jungle appeared quiet except for the buzzing of the insects whizzing around him.  [The New Guinea “salute” is said to actually be the act of swatting the insects!)

He said, “You know how annoying just one mosquito can be when it’s hovering by your ears.  This was like a swarm and I tried like hell to use my right hand to swat them away from my face.  When I began to approach our tents there was not one man to be seen and I couldn’t imagine where they all went.  As I got closer I could…

This is the Christmas Card Grandpa sent to about 200 family and friends in 1956.

This Christmas card contains quite a bit of history, both of Trumbull and the family Homestead of the Guion’s.  

This is a copy of a deed, dated 1758, mentioning “dwelling house and barn”

The present home of the Guion’s in Trumbull commemorates its 200th anniversary in this year of 1956.

The ancient deed, dated 1758, mentioning “dwelling house and barn” and reproduced on the front of this card, was obtained from old town records with the patient help of Stratford’s eminent local historian, Mr. William H Wilcoxson.

Further evidence of the age of our old home is supplied by the discovery of a hand-hewn chestnut log in the main fireplace which bears the inscription of initials and the date, “1776”.

This house, then, appears to have been built 20 years before the revolution…