Family Stories - New stories from Doug

Family Stories

New Stories From Doug

   One of the great things about having my adopted brother Doug visit this week has been the chance to swap family stories  I've got some new ones about my dad.

   To keep things straight, Doug and I are not blood kin.  His blood grandfather married my blood great=grandmother.  He's 13 years older than me.  Doug's mom, Betty, was the older sister my dad never had (though they were actually step cousins).  Doug's mom died when he was 3.  My dad was overseas fighting WWII at the time and asked his family to take Doug in, since Doug's dad had pretty much vanished.  There were a few gaps, due to Doug being in the foster care system (because of his dad), but mostly Doug lived with us once my parents got married.  So he has always been my brother.  He was a career Marine and now lives in Alabama with his second wife.  Now on with the new stories!

1.  When my dad (Jack) came back from WWII Doug was grade school age.  Jack and his best buddy, also a vet were planning on going to the beach.  Doug begged to go along with.  The guys agreed with the understanding that Doug would be obedient.  They got down to the beach and Neil, Jack's buddy saw this beautiful young woman.  Neil started talking her up.  He was convinced this would be a great date.  Seeing this, Jack calls Doug aside and asked him to do something.  Doug idolized Jack and would probably have done about anything for him at that point.  So Doug ran up to Neil, yelling loudly, "Daddy!  Where's Mommy?"  Doug thought Neil was going to strangle him.  Then Neil looked over and saw Jack about falling over laughing.  Despite that, Jack and Neil were friends until after Neil's marriage.

2.  Now my dad, like his father, was a professional photographer.  I remember the photography he did for the newspaper (lots of auto accidents and other news worthy events).  He also did publicity photography for various civic group.  That stuff I remember.  I sort of remember seeing some of what I now know would have been portfolio shots.  But I didn't know about the following...

   One time while Doug was on leave from the Marine Corps (he was probably about 19 at the time), Jack told Doug to come with him on a photo shoot in Hollywood.  It turned out to be a place where young women would model photographers (for a fee) in this large studio.  Most of the women were fully clothed.  A few would remove their shirts and pose in their bras and regular clothing.  To Doug's utter amazement, the first woman Jack talks to is very soon nude.  Jack took a bunch of photos and then moved on to another woman.  That woman was soon nude as well!  It went on like that the whole time they were there.  Jack acted like it was nothing unusual.  Then they went home where Jack processed his film.  Just another example of the charm my father had.

Note:  My mother had to have known about all this.  My dad didn't try to hide any of his photography.  I was not allowed into his darkroom at times, but that makes sense.  I suspect that Jack was very upfront about his nude shots with Joan.  He wasn't interested in any of them sexually.

While I'm writing about my dad and his photography I should include the story of the Maritain Bandit.  When I was very young and my father was doing a lot of photography for the local newspaper, he was also doing some photography for the local police department.  He got to know many of the officers on the force.  Some he liked and considered friends.  Some he considered to be bad cops, including the Chief of Police, but that's another story.  As this story opens, there was a bandit that had been robbing local businesses, wearing a space alien costume.  The police were having no luck capturing this guy.  It was during the 50's and space alien horror films were all the rage.

   One day a friend on the force and my dad were talking about the case and the officer began to see a pattern.  If he was right, the Alien Bandit was due to hit at a specific time and in a general area.  So the officer and Jack (with camera)  were at the location in the predicted time and they saw a man putting on the alien mask, preparing to enter another local business.  Success!  The suspect was searched and the "alien ray gun" used in the other robberies with on him.  Flash! Went the camera.  The man was convicted and the Alien Bandit was never seen again.  The officer became famous for the normal 15 minutes.  He did get a bump in rank out of it.  And since it was a slow news day, Jack's photo made it to the national news feeds.