photobooth friday

identical twins jim (my dad, on the left) and john, sometime around 1950.

I'm tellling you, it's crazy how much of ezra I see here in my dad. crazy. oh yes, this is ezra through and though-- right down to the furrowed brow (aka corrona scowl), retro buzz cut and implied stubborn streak. this photo has been slipped into the tiniest little frame and sits among an impressive army of old white vases at my parents' house. I love it, I have always loved looking at it. I hold it close to my face to really examine it, I squint as if I might catch any previously undetected details. in my head, I hear the stories my dad tells us about growing up, about the time uncle john threw a rock at the kid who wouldn't shut up. everyone loves to hear the story about the kid who screamed 'NANNYNANNYBOOBOO' so loud and so long that uncle john finally threw a rock to make him stop. now, whether or not uncle john knew that rock would fly straight into the kid's wide-open piehole and choke the taunt right out of him, well-- I don't know. but that is exactly what happened, that's how the infamous story goes. like something out of a movie. and folks, so many more stories like this. I can hear them over and over and over, I'm never bored. and I never get tired of looking at this tiny photobooth snapshot-- I am in love with the details. the matching striped shirts, how worn out and soft it is with all the folds and cracks and years. oh, I love it.

and the scrappy little twins (who just turned 60 on the first day of summer) went on to lead entirely different lives. fantastically juicy stories for another day, really-- stories that involve: an undercover narcotics cop and high school sweethearts and two hardcore marines and the vietnam war and a purple heart and thirty-plus years of coaching and harley davidson choppers and legendary drug busts and motorcycle gangs and a bible college dean of students and even a bit part in a cheech & chong movie. I'M NOT KIDDING. another photobooth friday, another photobooth friday.

can I get a photobooth friday witness? right on, my sisters:

jesC
the whole self
woof nanny
nessie noodle