old family photos

One of my cousins recently contacted me on facebook to let me know that they had a bunch of old photos of my father, and was I interested in them? I gave her my address, and this week a packet arrived in the mail. She had not only sent photos of a much younger version of my dad than I had ever seen, there were also a number of photos of me when I was really little. I had, of course, seen the ones of me, since they were also in the albums my parents kept (and which are, last I heard, at my sister's house in Seattle), but the ones of my dad I hadn't seen before.

Dad turned 34 the week after I was born, and these photos are all from when he was, I would guess, between 16 and 20. It was quite a surprise to see him with hair--by the time I was born he had settled on a flat-top crew cut, and wore it that way for the rest of his life. It was also surprising to find out that he had been blond. By the time I was born his hair (never more than 1 cm long) was dark with some silver highlights, and it had switched to mostly salt-and-pepper colour by the time I was 7 or so.

One of my cousins remember his mother admitting that the reason she first got to know his father is because she thought my father was cute.



You know, she has a point. I don't tend to find short hair attractive on anyone, but still, my dad had a pretty face, and the cutest little points on the sides of his ears, which, sadly, I didn't inherit, though I think I got his eyes...