All these wonderful color pictures, but now a black & white. A naval officer says goodbye to his little boy before leaving to serve in World War II. The boy was my constant companion in early childhood, as our parents were best friends. He couldn't say "Susie," so he called me Doodie. My parents picked it up, and my dad called me Dude most of the time all his life. The little boy grew up to become a successful lawyer with a lovely family. I spoke with him yesterday when I called to see if he wanted any of these pictures. (He did.) We started out life in the same place, but there we were on the phone, he in his Manhattan office and me in my Pennsylvania farmhouse.

Last Sat. was chilly and rainy so we headed to the nearby state park to try to have a little picnic and take a walk. We got rained out on the walk, but still had fun. :) If you follow the paved sidewalk, you enter the sandy beach area through a concrete block tunnel. It's horrible -- the wind through the tunnel blows sand at you and it stings wherever it hits your bare skin! not a people-friendly design. :p However, if you walk the grassy hill that's off to the side of the tunnel, it's more like this:

Few years ago with my grandson in Key West

In 2007 we visited New York City and visited the business that a cousin of my wife runs with her husband. The husband said he was in the office when it happened, and from on the balcony of the business (pictured here) you could see the World Trade Center through this gap between the buildings to the south of him.