You, Lisa and...? I have another copy of this pic somewhere, where you're all facing forward.

 

Taken in May(?) '93. Little did I know at the time how big a part this particular place was going to play in my life later... :)

 

I remember this picture well, because the sun was just brutal that day - I could barely keep my eyes open to have it taken. The printing on the back of this photo says Nov 77, which would have made me 10 - however, I'm sure that the photo wasn't taken in November, that's probably just when it was developed. It would have been too cold in Arkansas in November for short sleeves, so it would have been sometime the summer before - making me 9 years old at the time.

In the background (left) is the converted 1936 Mack bus my grandparents lived in - my grandfather had converted it into an RV (guess you'd call it a caravan?) long before there were commercially-produced ones like Winnebagos. He crafted all the fittings inside by hand, even using aircraft parts in some places. As far as I know, it is still parked there - though I'm sure it's fallen so far down by now that it likely couldn't be recovered. Shame, it's quite an original.

I never got to see it go anywhere, by the time I was born they had brought it back to their farm and parked it, and decided it was a bit more comfortable to live in than the old house on the right (which had no indoor plumbing, much less air or heat). But my brother and sisters got to travel around in the bus. Even more amazing is that after both my grandparents had died, my dad decided he wanted to see if the engine was in good enough shape to try to start it. With a little less than a day's work (and no major rebuilding), he got it running - after it had been sitting there untended for almost 30 years. Guess they just don't make them like they used to.

The yellow truck on the other side was an old milk delivery truck, made by International. My grandfather had converted it into a tool truck, it had just about anything you can imagine hung up in the back of it - even a gas welder.

Below is a pic of the bus in its better days - the caption on the back says, "July 1964, the day we left Washington for Houston, Texas." (my grandparents, parents, brother and sisters were all there at the time, if I recall the story right my dad and grandfather were working the same construction job then).

 

 

And then, just a pic of me that I thought was amusing. Too bad my hair didn't stay that blonde on its own. I was 5 in this picture.