Heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who....

Today's project involves the family in this picture. We don't know who they are. This photo, as well as many others, are all glued to construction paper pages inside an old leather-bound album we received today from a friend. She got it from her father, a farm boy from Texas who fought in Okinawa the winter of 1945 against the Japanese. How exactly he got it, we aren't sure. Someone, probably another young man from another side of the planet, was carrying this album with him as the world was falling apart.

There's very little writing in it. Not enough to provide any sort of clue to the people or even the specific locales. School pictures, family photos, pictures on the beach, but oddly nothing really definitive. No signs, landmarks. A few cryptic notes.

We're assuming, from what little we can piece together, that the mystery owner was probably from Okinawa, and not just stationed there. Our niece, who lives on one of the islands of Okinawa (of which there are hundreds. Islands that is, not nieces), has some connections and gave us some contacts with the news media. We've scanned some of the pictures and bright-eyes is sending them to those contacts to see if we can help reunite these captured memories with the people they may be important to.

Sipping my coffee with snow still falling outside my study window, it strikes me how odd a journey this album has taken. To be passing through our home, trying to find its way back. And it is my sincere wish, to all those who journey, that they reach the destinations they seek.

Bright Blessings,
-K