↓
 

words and images

🇺🇦✏️✒️📚📔🌜dreamer 🌕 thinker 🌕 aspirant📱📷🚴‍♀️🏕🍄🌻

Menu
  • Home
  • Articles
  • Book Reviews
  • Letters
  • Photography
  • Poems & Stories
  • About Diane Schirf
  • Site Map

Tag Archives: family

Post navigation

← Older posts

International Space Station (ISS) flyover

words and images Posted on September 17, 2022 by dlschirfSeptember 17, 2022

I subscribe to SpotTheStation, which tells you when you may be able to spot the International Space Station (ISS). Most of the time it’s at too low an angle (behind buildings or trees) or too late/early (or also too cloudy). Today, however:

Time: Sat Sep 17 7:44 PM, Visible: 7 min, Max Height: 89°, Appears: 10° above SW, Disappears: 10° above NE

Almost straight overhead and before my bedtime!

I walked to the park across 55th and got a great look at it until it disappeared 10º above NE. Even in all the light pollution. It took about six minutes from the time I spotted it until it disappeared. Here it is toward the end.

My dad would have loved this. We watched for the burn-up of Skylab together but conditions weren’t right. Still a great moment. And on the way home from family’s house in Eden, we saw a meteorite, which we were both thrilled over. Two of my fondest dad memories.

International Space Station flyover
Posted in Blog, Ephemera, Reminiscence | Tagged Chicago, family, Hyde Park, photo, weather | Leave a reply

Meet the Schirfs, updated

Beginning with my paternal grandparents, we move on to my parents, my dad’s family, and my brother — characters, each and every one. Arranged roughly in chronological order.

Cast of characters:

  • Nicholas Peter Schirf and wife Anna Marie Shank, married c. 1910
  • Children Mildred, Ralph (my dad), Marietta, and Thelma, plus a possible appearance by Harold
  • Thelma’s husband John Conner and granddaughter Erin
  • Daisy (my mother), Virgil (my brother), and yours truly
  • Possibly a few unidentified family members and/or third parties
Meet the Schirfs
Meet the Schirfs
72 photos
Wedding, Nicholas Peter Schirf, Anna Marie Shank
Thelma, Harold?, Marietta
Thelma Schirf,  23 May 1940
Ralph Schirf, Army Air Force
"To a sister I love Marietta from Ralph"
Ralph Schirf
Ralph Schirf
Ralph Schirf with dog and guitar
Ralph, Marietta Schirf
Marietta Schirf keylining
Ralph Schirf with car
Ralph Schirf
Marietta at Lake Laure, Marlyand, Sep46
Grandmother Anna Marie, Mildred, Thelma, Ralph, Aug48
Grandmother Anna Marie, Mildred, Thelma, Marietta, Ralph, Aug48
Mildred, Grandmother Anna Marie, Thelma, Ralph
Ralph, Thelma, Aug1948
Ralph, Marietta, Aug48
Ralph, Marietta, Aug48
Ralph
Ralph
Ralph at Lincoln Park Zoo
Marietta, 24Aug1951
Daisy, Virgil, Diane
Virgil
Virgil, Ralph
Daisy, Virgil, 15Apr1956
Ralph, Virgil, Daisy, 1957
Virgil, Hamburg, New York, winter 1959
Virgil
John Conner, Virgil, Thelma, Jim Conner, Ralph, Marietta
Daisy, Diane
Ralph, Diane
Virgil feeding Diane
Diane
Diane, 4May1962
Diane and Virgil, December 1961
Diane, Virgil with sprinkler
Ralph and Diane, April 1965
Virgil and Diane, 7Sep1966
Diane and Virgil, November 1966
Virgil and Diane, March 1967
Diane in checkered dress, 4June1967
Diane, June 1967
Virgil birthday, 1967
Thelma and Marietta in matching dresses, 16Sep1967
Diane, Virgil, Christmas 1967
Thelma, Erin Conner
Mildred, Thelma, July 1971
Diane, Virgil with encyclopedias, January 1972
Virgil in Okinawa, November 1972
Virgil in uniform, January 1972
Virgil and Diane, January 1972
Diane, 6th grade graduation in 1973(?)
Virgil with wig
Daisy, Diane with Donna, 1977
Ralph and Daisy, 25th wedding anniversary
Virgil, Marietta
Marietta, Erin Conner
Virgil and Diane, 1981
Ralph, Diane, Daisy at Christmas
Ralph, October 1982
Virgil, Mildred, June (May?) 1983
Diane at convocation, 11June1983
Marietta and Diane in DC
Ralph, Marietta
Marietta and Ralph, August 1984
Ralph
Ralph
Diane and Courtney Lenna, November 1989
Diane and Virgil
Diane by Courtney L. Schirf, 28November1997
June 9, 2020 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Life Tagged family, photo, Schirfs, vintage family photos 3 Replies

Marietta Schirf, WAC editor

words and images Posted on March 22, 2020 by dlschirfMarch 22, 2020

Marietta Schirf was my dad’s youngest sister. He said he didn’t know how she snuck into the Armed Forces because he was sure she didn’t meet the minimum height requirement.

At a 1980s July 4th concert on Capitol Hill, E. G. Marshall officiating, veterans by branch were asked to stand up. When the turn came for the Air Force, she stood and whooped, to the surprise of our neighbors on the grass. I asked why Air Force, and she answered she’d been in the Army Air Corps. That’s the first I’d heard that.

Aunt Marietta died in the mid-90s. How she would have appreciated the resources of the internet. She once took me to the Library of Congress to look up articles on sugalite.

I will have to look up Front and Center. On the internet.

Marietta Schirf
Marietta Schirf at work on Front and Center
Posted in Blog, Life, Reminiscence | Tagged clippings, family, news, nostalgia, Pennsylvania | Leave a reply

Virgil’s school photos

words and images Posted on January 25, 2020 by dlschirfMay 1, 2020

I can date only a couple of my brother Virgil’s school photos, but tried to arrange them by apparent (to me) age. I wasn’t born until Virgil was almost eight years old, and I don’t remember much before kindergarten (except, I think, climbing out of and dangling from my crib, giving my mother heart palpitations when she found me). My first day of kindergarten was his first day of eighth grade.

Virgil and Diane, 9/7/1966
First day of kindergarten!
Virgil’s school photos
Virgil’s school photos
7 photos
Virgil_school_2
Virgil_school
Virgil 64-65
Virgil 12 9th grade
photo of photo, not scanned
Virgil Schirf 1968-69
Virgil 70-71

Virgil’s reaction to these photos?

What a brutally handsome dude. Who is he?

That’s Virgil in a nutshell. Or old photos.

Posted in Blog, Reminiscence | Tagged family, photo, vintage family photos | Leave a reply

Dream: Camp, train, snow, bazookas, and apocalypse

words and images Posted on September 15, 2019 by dlschirfSeptember 15, 2019

I was on a train in Indiana that had left a campground I was staying at (I remembered being at a camp but didn’t remember it). The train started to pass snow-covered fields, although it was only August. I thought, “Something is terribly wrong.”

Next I was in the bright atrium of an office building or a large department store. Slowly I became aware that someone was firing or about to fire a bazooka or something like it. I ran away and encountered a second person about to fire. I got away from that one too.

I found myself in a narrow street or an alley that should have been crowded with people but was quiet and lonely. I walked faster and faster, trying to elude whatever was lurking for me between me and the end.

I heard something, then saw my dad in his van, beckoning me to hurry. “How could Dad be here?” I wondered, but still I hurried to him . . . and safety.

Posted in Blog, Dream | Tagged dream, family | Leave a reply

Pennsylvania: Logan Valley Cemetery, Sinking Valley, Whipple Dam State Park

words and images Posted on September 2, 2019 by dlschirfApril 5, 2020
September 2

We visited my parents’ graves at Logan Valley Cemetery, located across from the high school. A cousin I haven’t seen in decades had left flowers at my dad’s grave. His flag holder for veterans still has a metal medallion. The newer medallions are plastic thanks to theft. Once upon a time I was young enough to find it shocking someone would steal the flag holder from a veteran’s grave.

Dad's marker

In Sinking Valley, this little mare and her young’un attract customers to Hilltop Farm. There’s also a wee donkey.

Wee ponies and donkey

On to Whipple Dam State Park, which was new to me. It’s yet another part of our legacy from the Civilian Conservation Corps. As it was Labor Day and central Pennsylvania isn’t rich with beaches, a college-age crowd had gathered at Whipple Dam’s postage stamp of sand to play volleyball and stand in the relatively shallow water. Despite the crowd, the surrounding woods gave the lake and beach an isolated feeling that reminded me of Pewit’s Nest in Wisconsin.

Whipple Dam State Park
Whipple Dam State Park
Autumn meadowhawk
Whipple Dam State Park

We’d passed the road to Shaver Creek Environmental Center and stopped on the way back. The buildings were closed for the holiday, so we relaxed on the deck’s Adirondack chairs. I kept hoping to hear a creek.

On the way to the park, V. spotted a plant she thought might be teaberry (ICE CREAM!). According to the folks of iNaturalist, it’s partridgeberry. Pretty, but perhaps not as weirdly tasty as teaberry. If you can’t get teaberry ice cream, try Clark’s teaberry gum. You won’t thank me, I think. It’s an acquired taste, associated with childhood 50 years ago.

Partridgeberry
Posted in Adventure, Blog | Tagged family, insect, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania state park, photo, state park, travel, wildlife | Leave a reply

Shoebox gateway to past

words and images Posted on June 24, 2019 by dlschirfApril 7, 2020
Dad Oct1982
Dad in October 1982, age 69, with his reduced garden, about six years before offering to throw a lifetime’s worth of family photos away

I’ve seen vintage photos and postcards for sale, and even bought a few myself, such as postcards of Starved Rock State Park.

I understand wanting postcards, souvenirs of places that have disappeared, changed, or survived — time capsules of a not-too-distant, recognizable past.

It’s harder for me to understand buying mundane photos of regular people the buyer never knew. Do they hope the photos will turn out to be valuable? Do they want to make up stories about the unknown, deceased-these-many-years people? Do they pretend strangers are their own family members, giving them names and histories? Or do they simply want to add old photos to their decor for a vintage look?

I was thinking about this when going through two shoeboxes of family photos. I’d finally found the perfect scanner for small photos (e.g., 4” x 6”). Many of my oldest photos are smaller. Some have typewritten captions on the back. I suspect these were added by Aunt Marietta, who after World War II became an executive assistant with the Atomic Energy Commission, later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I don’t think anyone else would have had access to a typewriter.

Some have handwritten captions. Many aren’t labeled — no subject, location, or date. Dad labeled most of his photos, at least later. I think these random, unlabeled photos frustrated him — even though he knew most of the subjects. I wonder what a photo buyer would make of them?

I don’t know what to make of some of them myself. There’s a little blonde girl who is not the daughter of my mother’s best friend. (She agreed it’s not her.) There are a boy and a girl. The boy could be my brother, but he doesn’t recognize the girl. two of my aunts are posed with a taller man. I can only guess he may have been Harold, a brother had had epilepsy and died before he reached 21.

I have two shoe boxes and a suitcase of my dad’s photos and a lot of scanning to do of the people photos. When he moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to family, he threatened to throw out every photo. Panicked, I hastily communicated he was not to toss a single photo, and I would take them. I was shocked, but he was in a purging mood. Who knows? A buyer may have wanted them.

All this is a long way of saying to expect to see small vintage photos posted here once in a while, along with anything I know and think about them.

Posted in Blog, Reminiscence | Tagged family, photo, shoebox, vintage family photos | Leave a reply

Happy Father’s Day, 2019 edition

Ralph Schirf
June 16, 2019 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Reminiscence Tagged family, photo Reply

Relics: Windows that wind (and car cigarette lighters)

words and images Posted on March 16, 2019 by dlschirfApril 7, 2020

I can’t say we took any great American road trips when I was a child — mostly 200-mile jaunts to visit family in the Altoona area of Pennsylvania or rare shorter ones to local attractions like Niagara Falls or Letchworth State Park. The first car I remember was a powder blue Ford Falcon. With Virgil and me in the back seat picking on each other and wondering “Are we there yet?” after 25 or 50 miles, time and money may not have been the only reason we didn’t travel far or often.

Later, my dad bought a used van with two back seats. This was such a novelty that kids stopped by to pile in. All that room! Of course it was bare bones, a working man’s van, with none of the comforts of today’s SUVs and minivans, like DVD players or even — gasp! — cup holders. We “roughed it” back in those days with tap water or water from a roadside spring in Pennsylvania kept in a jug. We’d have to pull over to drink it. And we didn’t know about “hydration,” only thirst.

We had only an over-the-air radio — no Sirius, no subscription services tailored to our tastes. You might find yourself in a part of the country with only bland pop and country & western. Our series of bare-bones vehicles didn’t have 8-track tape decks or CB radios for chatting with passing truckers. I don’t think the radio played much of a role in our trips, except to get traffic and weather.

We had games like “punch bug,” in which being the first to see a Volkswagen Beetle on the highway entitled you to punch your annoying brother, sister, or friend. We also kept an eye peeled for “beavers,” station wagons with wood-paneled sides. We’d make a pulling motion to truck drivers to try to get them to pull their air horns. We liked the ones who accommodated us. I understand the tradition continues today, although with safety first (no startling of unaware drivers) and the hope it doesn’t provoke a modern road rage incident.

Of course there were no USB ports, but there were cigarette lighters — in 1965, a whopping 45 percent of Americans smoked. I’ve never bought a car, but it sounds like what Wikipedia describes as a “de facto DC connector,” or cigarette lighter receptacle, is more likely to be used to power portable accessories (“lights, fans, beverage heating devices, and air compressors for inflating tires”). I wonder if it can be used for e-cigarettes? J’s is used for an iPhone charger. With only about 15 percent of Americans smoking today, I suspect the car cigarette lighter as such has achieved “relic” status for many of us.

Neither the Ford Falcon nor the vans that followed had air conditioning save that offered by an open window and a speed-generated breeze. I don’t know how we held conversations on the open highway. Maybe we didn’t, other than, “He’s picking on me!” and “Are we there yet?” punctuated by “Ralph, STOP!” (My mother had imaginary brakes on her side and possibly a worn-out floorboard.)

Most cars sold in the U.S. now come with air conditioning as a standard; it’s a given, not a luxury — not so north of the border. Today we “wind” the windows down mostly to take photos, ask passers-by questions, pay entrance fees or talk to booth operators, and on occasion encourage a fly or mosquito to vamoose. I say “wind” even though the push of a button opens the windows (as long as they’re powered, that is).

In the old Ford Falcon and vans, you did wind the windows up and down, just like we used window winders to open and close the trailer’s jalousie windows. I had to look that term up — jalousie windows in campers/trailers/mobile homes were common in the 1950s and ‘60s, but aren’t anymore.

Jalousie window in Riverside, Illinois
Jalousie window opened with a window winder in Riverside, Illinois

Although cars.com talks about “old-school manual crank windows that seem, especially now, from a bygone automotive era,” they’re also not quite a relic. People don’t want them for themselves, but they do want the lower car price. They’re also found in many trucks. The 2015 cars.com article concludes, “For now, at least, it’s clear there are enough price-conscious new-car shoppers to keep manual windows around.”

I’ve never been a smoker, and I don’t feel nostalgic about car cigarette lighters. As with push lawn mowers and clotheslines, however, I do miss manual windows and window winders. Power windows have their advantages when you spot something and want to take a photo or video quickly (although they make enough noise to scare off animals). On the other hand, when I wait in the car I don’t always remember to open the window when the power is on, so I resort to the alternative, awkward in a parking lot, of opening the door. It doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes I want to crank open the window.

At least it’s not because someone used the cigarette lighter.

Posted in Blog, Relics | Tagged family, nostalgia, photo, relics | 3 Replies

Dream: “Wind! Wind! WIND!”

words and images Posted on February 27, 2019 by dlschirfFebruary 27, 2019

(The title is from The Thief of Bagdad. Grand Vizier Jaffar, played by Conrad Veidt, dramatically summons the sea wind to do his evil bidding.)

I was living with my parents in a trailer in a sweet location, probably with trees and gardens. The word seemed to be “idyllic.”

It became windy and windier, and the wind finally tore the trailer away. It felt like we were traveling smoothly down the highway, but I knew the stop would destroy the trailer and possibly kill us.

It didn’t.

We found ourselves in a city or town, in a narrow, darkened alley or street, the opposite of everything I had wanted or known. I was devastated. One of us found a window with a view of a field and trees, but the trees were weedy bird of paradise.

The wind took us away again on the same smooth ride. We saw we were headed toward water. I know everything we had would be ruined. I searched frantically for Pudge to try to save her but even after we stopped (and yet somehow ended up back on land) I couldn’t find her. I panicked and cried over the loss of my helpless innocent cat.

We were blown away again, and during this journey I found Pudge not only unharmed but dry and clean as though she had never been wet.

Next we were blown toward a sunny hillside. “Great,” my mother said. “Figures we’d be blown into and down the only hill in Illinois.” I started to tell her there are hills in southern Illinois in Shawnee National Forest, but it occurred to me a moment of fear and anger is not the time to educate someone.

As we bumped down the hill, I noticed how steep it was — steeper than any hill I’d seen.

I wondered how the trailer and we had survived these journeys and crashes. I kept hoping we’d land gently in a sheltered spot where the wind couldn’t grasp us.

We sailed toward a passing freight train in town, but curved off and didn’t hit it. That was a relief, but there was another track with a train in the next direction, and another in a third direction. It’s like we were in a triangle of trains, but I couldn’t work out how that could be possible in such a tight area without them hitting one another.

I knew at some point the trailer must disintegrate and we must die.

Posted in Blog, Dream | Tagged dream, family | Leave a reply

Post navigation

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • Future of artificial limbs (prosthetics)
  • Hodge, 2001 – 2013 (cat)
  • “Far more happier” (The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes)
  • Pileated woodpecker pair at Sapsucker Woods
  • Eternal flame waterfall at Chestnut Ridge

Top Posts & Pages

  • Top 10 reasons Commander Riker walks with his head tilted
  • Book review: Zitkala-Sa: American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings
  • Memories of South Shore Plaza, Hamburg, New York
  • Wopsononock Mountain, or Wopsy, in Blair County, Pennsylvania
  • Book review: Women in Love
  • Relics: The newsstand
  • Book review: Henry and June
  • Book Reviews
  • Sunset from Coffee Creek Park in Chesterton, Indiana
  • Horseshoe Curve National Historic Site, Tytoona Natural Area Cave Preserve

Archives

Other realms

  • BookCrossing
  • Facebook
  • Goodreads
  • Instagram
  • LibraryThing
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Good viewing

  • Art of John Taft
  • bensozia
  • Bill of the Birds (no longer updated)
  • BrontëBlog
  • Edge
  • Karen Winters Fine Art
  • Mental Floss
  • Musical Assumptions
  • National Geographic News
  • Orange Crate Art
  • Sexy Archaeology
  • The Creative Journey
  • The Introvert's Corner
  • The Pen Addict
  • The Raucous Royals
  • Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
  • Woodclinched
  • World-O-Crap

BOINC Stats

Copyright © 1996–2023 Diane Schirf. Photographs and writing mine unless noted.
↑