Visit to KingFisher Brewery This guy came up to my window a couple of weeks ago because he plans to visit US in November. During the visa interview, it came out that his family owns several distilleries, including the local Kingfisher brewery. Kingfisher is probably the #1 selling beer in India, and many of us drink it, especially the Super Strong. I asked him if the brewery offered tours, because I thought a lot of people at the consulate might be interested in checking it out. He gave me his business card and I contacted him a few days later to put him in touch with our Community Liaison Office, which would handle the logistics of the visit. Yesterday was the big day, and a group of about 20 from the consulate, including our Consul General and his family, visited the brewery, which is located in Aranvoyal Village, Thiruvallur, about 50 kilometers from Chennai. The factory is three years old, and is state of the art. In fact, it’s already won awards two years running as the best brewery in India. Computers control every phase of the brewing process. The brewery produces at least four different beers: Kingfisher, Kingfisher Super Strong, Kalyani Black Label and Jaguar (I’ve yet to try this one). The brewery has roughly 200 employees, of which only 18 are involved in the brewing process. Here are some more photos of the plant: This next picture reminds me of that TV show from the 1970s about two young women who worked in a Milwaukee brewery and had nutty Lucille Ball-style escapades. With apologies to “Laverne and Shirley”, I bring you: “Lakshmi and Shriya”: Join the girls for all of their wacky adventures each week, immediately following “Hampi Days” Beer Pooja: to curry favor from the God of Good Brew On its way to you One mystery the tour failed to resolve is what accounts for the strong, unpleasant (imo) chemical aftertaste in Indian beer. This is true of every brand produced for the domestic market, not just Kingfisher. This was also true of Taiwan Beer, at least when I last lived there over 12 years ago. Urban legend has it that they add formaldehyde or glycerin at some point in the brewing process. I am unable to confirm or deny this. They do use formaldehyde at this plant, but they claim it is only used to sterilize pipes and other equipment, and that the chemical does not make it into the beer. One of my colleagues theorized that perhaps the taste comes from residue left behind by the caustic soda flake solution they use to disinfect recycled bottles. Bottom line: we just don’t know. Can anyone shed some light on this? Anyway, we had a great time, made several new friends, and I’m the proud owner of a Kingfisher half-pint glass which will have an honored place in my collection.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/30/2005 01:30:00 PM| |

 
Book Review---Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday Of all my recent book purchases in Hong Kong, this was the one I most highly anticipated. It is impossible to understand modern China without dealing with the life and legacy of Mao Zedong. In fact, up until about five years ago I would have argued that Mao was the most important Chinese of the 20th Century. Now I believe Deng Xiaoping is the rightful heir of that mantle, having clearly passed by Mao, leaving him an (increasingly) distant second. Still, Mao retains an almost demigod status in the consciousness of many Chinese born before his death in 1976. Thus, adequately explaining this extremely complicated figure in the context of his times remains a vitally important necessity, now that China has re-emerged in a big way on the world stage. Unfortunately, this book is a supreme disappointment. Full disclosure: I knew going in that Jung Chang would not be friendly towards Mao. I have no problem with that; a biographer is not required to like her subject. It is common knowledge, for instance, that Stephen Ambrose abhorred Richard Nixon. However, a biographer owes it to her subject, and most of all to her readers, to present an objective account of the person’s life (as Ambrose achieved). In this, the authors fail utterly. They present a wooden, one-dimensional picture of an enormously complex life, and readers could be forgiven if they came away from the book believing Mao was Lucifer incarnate. It is bad history, shoddily written, poorly edited, with a story that moves along in an agonized, plodding manner. In this book, Mao appears more as caricature than human being, and the central thesis of the authors seems to be that Mao ‘meaned’ his way to the top, being a man without a single redeeming quality. Mao’s personal physician, Li Zhisui, wrote a tell-all book about his infamous patient, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, that portrays a more vivid, realistic, and interesting picture of the Chairman, warts and all. Li makes no secret of the fact that he believed Mao was a despot, but even he acknowledged Mao’s contributions to the Revolution, and what’s more, he presented Mao as a believable human being. Jung and Halliday would have us believe the Revolution succeeded in spite of Mao. The authors draw several questionable conclusions in their attempt to shatter the Mao myth. For instance, they argue that Mao was merely a stooge of Stalin, and that Moscow, which had backed him all along, basically installed him to run the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They also contend that practically every CCP leader despised Mao. This doesn’t stand to reason. First of all, in the days before Mao’s rise to the top, the CCP disciplined Mao on several occasions precisely because he often used passive aggressive tactics to avoid carrying out CCP directives (from Moscow) because he believed these were unsuitable for conditions in China. Second, if all Moscow desired was a bootlicking sycophant that fawned over every new directive from the Kremlin, there were several other candidates it would have chosen (in fact, did choose), including those who had actually lived in Moscow. Why would Stalin choose someone like Mao to head the CCP who had a demonstrated history of opposition to Moscow, and (if the authors are correct) was such an unpopular figure in his own party? In their attempts to demonize their subject, the authors make the fatal error of propping up his opponents. In particular, they give kid glove treatment to Chiang Kai-shek, glossing over his own brutality and incompetence and the atrocities of the Nationalist government; for instance, in their account, the 1927 Shanghai White Terror purge on April 12 resulted in the deaths of ‘some’ trade union leaders and ‘probably’ more than 300 communists. They neglect to inform the reader that the actual number of dead in the city approached 40,000 and the criminal gangs allied with Chiang sold the wives and daughters of slain workers by the thousands into the city’s teeming brothels. Throughout the book they continually explain away Chiang’s shortcomings, failures and disastrous generalship as due to the treachery or ineptitude of others. His coterie was comprised of moles, secret agents, or outright traitors. Without a shred of hard evidence, they allege that one of Chiang’s most trusted generals, Hu Zongnan, was a Moscow agent, who deliberately lost scores of key battles to the CCP. Yet he inexplicably accompanied Chiang to Taiwan in 1949 and remained there the rest of his life. Their most unique assertion is that Chiang intentionally held back and permitted the CCP to escape to north China during the Long March, because of a secret deal he made with the Russians to guarantee the safety of his only son Chiang Ching-kuo, who was living in Russia as an exchange student and worker. Again, they can offer no evidence to back this up, except for the fact that Chiang failed to eliminate the Red Army on the Long March; since he failed to do so, it must be because he had an ulterior motive. With this logic, one wonders what his ulterior motive was in the Civil War of 1947-1949. The authors employ this tactic numerous times throughout the book, claiming that what they are revealing was ‘secret’ at the time and ‘remains so today’. A mighty convenient way to avoid proving their assertions. One thing the book does have going for it, is the extensive use of Chinese-language primary and secondary sources. Here again, though, the authors seem to mischaracterize, if not outright distort, key assertions from what information the sources provide that is critical of Mao Zedong. This is true of quoted cites from already published works, which appear to be taken out of context. They then draw sweeping conclusions that are difficult to correlate with the quoted material. Their most explosive tidbits always happen to come from personal interviews; most of these, oddly enough, are informants the authors don’t identify (for the sources’ own safety, the authors claim). Maybe this is true, but the evidentiary value of the assertions suffers as a result. The good thing about the abundance of sources is that an academic who wishes to check the accuracy and context of cites should have no trouble doing so, except of course, for the scores of anonymous interviews. If this is done, it is my conviction that the authors’ conclusions and research will not stand up to critical academic scrutiny. I also hope that someone will contact the interviewees that did go public; I suspect they will claim that in many respects that the authors took their views out of context. In sum: anyone waiting for the definitive biography of Chairman Mao will have to keep waiting. It is undeniable that Mao was a cruel tyrant. However, this book reveals nothing about the man and how he came to be that way. It completely underestimates his genuine abilities and ignores his very real accomplishments, all of which even his sternest Chinese critics and enemies concede. This book is nothing more than a clumsy hatchet job, and will appeal only to those with either no knowledge of modern Chinese history (if they can read through it), or those intent on seeing the CCP as the post-USSR bogeyman. If you really want to read this book, save your money: get a copy from a library, buy it used, or wait until it comes out in paperback. Coming soon, I will review what I consider to be everything this book was not, i.e. superlative biography: Jonathan Fenby’s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the China He Lost.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/25/2005 10:30:00 PM| |

 
Confucius For Dummies top row, l-r: Chan (Zen) Stories; Records of the Grand Historian; The Analects; The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch; Essay on Vegetable Roots; bottom row, l-r: Lao Zi; The Heart Sutra; Han Fei Zi; Mencius; Buddha StoriesHere are some books I purchased in Hong Kong. I can read Chinese fairly well, at least with regards to most books, newspapers and magazines, but classical Chinese is an entirely different animal. It's kind of the equivalent of westerners learning Latin, except that I think Chinese still maintain a far more intimate bond with their classical period. The foundation of Chinese culture is rooted in these texts, but as even Chinese will tell you, classical Chinese takes years to learn in its own right. And that's just the mere linguistic aspects; the ideas themselves in these works are often very difficult to grasp. For that, there is one man to whom I (and lazy students in the Chinese-speaking world since 1983) turn: Cài Zhìzhōng. (Also: Tsai Chih Chung). A native of Taiwan, he's become a very wealthy and famous man because he has a knack for condensing the wisdom of the Chinese classics into easily digestible comic book form. Millions of students owe him their sanity. He's probably best known for his comics of the Daoist texts, especially Zhuang Zi 莊子, but his adaptations cover the entire classical canon, including philosophy, history, literature (both fiction and poetry), and religion. He's even published his autobiography, appropriately enough, as a comic book. His books are widely available in English at Amazon and several other online stores. They're perfect for the casual non-Chinese reader who would like to learn more about ancient China's contributions to epistemology. Cai is a marvelous illustrator as well, so his renderings are entertaining and humorous. I plan to pick up his entire library while in Taiwan.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/22/2005 05:25:00 PM| |

 
2005 Semester At Sea The Semester At Sea vessel made its annual port of call to Chennai this week. For those of you who don’t know, this is about the most awesome overseas study program around. For over 100 days, students from various American universities have the opportunity to do a semester abroad on an oceangoing vessel. They live and have classes aboard the ship, which stops at perhaps a dozen countries around the world. How cool is that? Chennai is one of those stops. The program’s administrators asked some representatives from the US Consulate to address the students about Chennai, India in general, security issues, any other useful information we thought they should be aware of during their five-day stop. I went along to inform them about what types of assistance the American Citizen Services unit provides to people here. I kept driving home the point that they should not bring along their passports when they left the ship, but instead just take a photocopy. While it is easy enough for us to replace a lost passport, we can’t replace the visas of other countries that may be inside it, and for a trip like this, that could mean spending the rest of the voyage stuck on the ship. The vessel is nothing short of amazing. Here it is docked at Chennai: The MV Explorer These traditional Indian musicians were on hand to welcome it: and these ladies were sweeping the dock clean: Here’s a view of the rear observation deck: and the computer lounge: They get Internet access at sea via a satellite linkup, but it costs something like $20 an hour. They were thrilled when I told them Chennai’s i-cafes are something in the range of .50-.75 cents an hour. I actually half-heartedly thought about going on the Semester at Sea during law school on the summer program after my 1L year. But money was tight for us then and I doubt Spicygirl would’ve appreciated me running off to sea on a cruise ship while she navigated the 405 everyday. Still, I was surprised at the number of ‘Continuing Education’ students (read: retirees) on board, so maybe there’s hope for me yet. Semester at Sea has always had this reputation as a haven for rich, spoiled brats, but I have to say the students I met on this ship struck me as very decent and bright people. And when you examine the cost, it is expensive, but not prohibitively so, considering you can get financial aid, and the fees include room and board. It costs just a bit more to do this, for instance, than attend a term as an out-of-state student at my alma mater, the University of Oregon. For more info about the Semester at Sea, visit their website here. Postscript: After all my careful warnings and repeated emphasis, one of the students lost her passport while taking a bus in Chennai. (We told them to steer clear of public transport here, too). Kids.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/21/2005 11:50:00 PM| |

 
Early Halloween Below is a photo I took at the Wong Tai Sin 黄大仙 Taoist temple in Hong Kong on September 8. I didn't see anything unusual at the time; I just thought the old woman with her incense offering would make an interesting subject. It wasn't until after I returned to Chennai and transferred the photo to my computer that I noticed there was more to the picture than initially meets the eye. The most obvious is the image of a hat behind the old woman. If you look closely, you can also make out what appears to be the outline of a young woman's head, her hair, ear and nape of the neck. I shot this outdoors and it is not a reflection. I'm not saying what it is or what it isn't, only that I can't explain it: I'm open to suggestions. I should check the lunar calendar to see if September 8 fell during 'Ghost Month' this year! 你们相信鬼吗? 以上的照片是在香港黄大仙庙拍的,刚好靠近中国农历七月份的所谓'鬼月',也称为中元节.当时我没有感到任何意外的事情. 我就想那位点香的老太婆本身是个好镜头.拍完了,也没有再想她,就走了,回家了.一直回印度,把所有在这次旅行拍的照片下载后才发现这张照片真与众不同.不知道你们看得出不?我一看就大吃一惊.当然,大部分读者不认识我. 但,希望你们相信,我一点都没有耍弄过这张照片. 我并不是说这是否是鬼. 我就说我没法儿解释它. 对于鬼存不存在的话,我不能说.不过这张照片真够奇异,是不是?
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/16/2005 10:38:00 PM| |

 
Goan Getaway The Goa trip came just at the right time. Things have been pretty insane around here lately. Actually, we are now moving into what is certainly the best time of year in Chennai. The monsoon has arrived, and we seem to be getting plenty of rain this year; way more than last year at this time, that’s for sure. There are two standouts about this time of year: #1, temps are down, way down. The highs merely climb into the mid 80s (30º C); I can live with that. Best of all, this is the major festival season in South India. Loads of holidays, beginning with the recent four-day weekend, are around the corner, and that suits me just fine. I will be a traveling fool from here on out, and want to see as much as possible in my last five months here. I’ve got one major trip planned after the New Year; the rest will be more modest, localized ventures. We flew out of Madras after work last Friday, overnighting in Bangalore. As much as I love the Leela Palace, I have to say standards have noticeably slipped since last year, while rates have more than doubled. I still maintain that it has the best beds in all of India, indeed of anywhere I’ve been in the world, but it’s probably not worth the price anymore. And Bangalore, when did the Moral Authority take over? What’s with all your clubs/pubs shutting down at 11:00pm? Things are bad enough in Chennai; we all look(ed) to Bangalore as a safe refuge, a place to where we could flee once the sanctimonious hypocrisy became too much to bear. But I guess Anita is right, the madness has infected even the most cosmopolitan city in South India. This made the getting to Goa even better. There are two main parts to Goa, North and South. Most of the exclusive five-star resorts are in South Goa, and the beaches are slightly less crowded, more secluded. North Goa is where the package tourists from Europe converge, along with backpackers and the Indian middle class tourist. It has a reputation, much deserved as it turns out, for being Party Central. We stayed at Baga in North Goa, at the Sun Village Resort, a three-star hotel. We got a pretty nice package deal that included all meals, unlimited free drinks all day (even alcohol)[WARNING: under no circumstances should you EVER drink Alcazar vodka, even if it's free. One word comes to mind: vile], complimentary shuttle to/from the airport, and two half-day tours. The rooms are nice-sized and adequate, and the swimming pool is decent. It’s close to the beach and the nightlife. Baga BeachBeaches in North Goa are nothing to write home about, but are far better than those on India’s east coast. At least people here don’t use the beaches as public toilets. The infrastructure is sufficient, with many reasonably priced bars and cafes; the hawkers can be annoying, because you can’t take a stroll down the beach without them constantly coming up and asking if you want to sunbathe on the beach chairs they have staked about. Others come up peddling the same useless junk that you find on the backpacker trail from Thailand to Turkey. Nepalese handicrafts seem to be the in-flavor these days. Christianity is big in Goa, thanks to the Portuguese: Holy Roller Dashboard The H-Bomb and I took one of our hotel’s half-day tours; besides this one UK girl, we were the only non-Indians on the tour. It promised a ‘visit to Donna Paula, a stop at the Panaji exhibition and shopping center, and a sunset cruise on the Mandovi River’. With a name like Donna Paula, I thought that meant a pause at one of the many famous Goan Catholic churches, many of which are close to 500 years old. Nope, it was a tourist beach where we received 15 minutes to visit t-shirt stalls and maybe take in a quick Rps 70 water scooter ride: The stop at the ‘Panaji exhibition and shopping center’ was the most bizarre of all. There were only two shops here: one sold wholesale cashews and the other sold cashew fenni and coconut toddy (two renowned Goan spirits). I visited the latter shop, ‘natch, and picked up a bottle of each. I’ll have you know my ‘Bon Voyage’ (!) brand Deluxe Cashew Fenni is triple filtered and 5 years matured. Aged in oak casks? I don’t know, but it’s bottled in plastic, same as the coconut toddy, I guess to prevent unfortunate mishaps on the trains and planes. These guys at the wine shop were very friendly, and helped us pick out the best brands. A bottle of each cost Rps 130. I don’t think I’ll be checking my cloak here PR sampling the wares The river cruise took place on a huge two-tiered vessel. Tour groups from many different operators share the deck. There are several of these ships plying the river, and tickets cost Rps 100 for about 90 minutes on the water. They also sell beer and soft drinks on the boat. On these cruises, the scenery is secondary; in fact, I don’t think Indians even notice. They are there to do two things: sing and dance. Each boat has its own band and troupe of dancers. They cordon off a stage, and after a very brief ‘cultural performance’, the emcee opens up the floor to the Indian passengers, who proceed to get jiggy. It’s quite a sight. PR and Chennai ‘friend’: what are the odds?This guy came up to me shortly after the cruise got underway. He said he knew me from somewhere, and asked if perhaps I worked at the US Consulate in Chennai. I said I did, and he replied that he had had his visa interview with me a week or two previously! He works at one of the multinational IT companies. So here we are, several hundred miles from Chennai, in a completely different consular district, and this guy just happened to take a vacation to Goa with his family on the same weekend I did. Not only that, he takes the same river cruise on the same boat, on the same night, even though there are several other ships. (Yes, I issued him a visa. Whew!). I’ve heard stories of my colleagues meeting applicants they had interviewed in other parts of Chennai, or perhaps at the Chennai airport, but this is the first I’ve heard of something like this: a chance meeting in a completely different district. Goan paddy scene on the way to airport descent into Mumbai Final Thoughts: Goa is probably the last frontier for those seeking genuine nightlife in South India, or maybe all of India for that matter. There are many, many clubs, and they stay open late. I’m not particularly into the club scene and only went out one night, but I had a great time at Club Cubana in Baga. Goa is famous for all night raves on the beach, but these don’t happen until the Christmas season, when international revelers overrun the place. We arrived a week before the kick-off of high season, but there was still lots of action. If Goan Trance and raving isn’t your thing, then South Goa offers a mellower alternative. It’s where I would’ve headed had I not been with my friends. The half-day tour turned out to be a high point, simply because we got to observe the Indian middle class experience. Scenery-wise, Kerala wins out as the most picturesque destination in South India; they don’t call it ‘God’s Own Country’ for nothing. I can understand why people from Mumbai like to come here on a long weekend, but for the non-raver traveler short on time, I recommend you head for Kerala.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/15/2005 02:00:00 PM| |

 
More Good HK Eats I read somewhere that Hong Kong has over 6000 restaurants. That figure must climb way higher if you include the 'semi-official' places. These are joints that don't have proper restaurant licences, but do business as members-only 'clubs'. They seem to be perfectly legal, because they operate openly and even advertise. Spicygirl took me to one that is quite popular, and is one of the best lunch values you'll find in Hong Kong. It's called 'Zhou Mum's Sichuan' to the best of my memory. (I actually brought their takeout menu back with me to Madras, but now I can't find it: Spicygirl, please do the needful). It's located in-between Central and the Mid Levels, on a very popular street full of expat bars, but I saw very few Westerners in the place---always a good sign when it comes to the most authentic Chinese food! You have to know where it is to find it, because it's tucked away on the 5th floor of a non-descript lowrise. If you go here, the thing to get without a doubt is their signature specialty: 酸辣粉. They do have other items, but save yourself the trouble. Here it is: Hot and Spicy Sweet Potato Noodles at Zhou Mum's There are a handful of tables, and only one chef that I could see, but the kitchen, though small, is clean. He's a genuine Sichuan shīfù 师傅, too, though I can't remember exactly where (Yíbīn 宜宾, says Spicygirl). Zhou Mum's Sichuan Country Cookin' You can also get dinner here, but unlike lunch, you have to phone ahead in advance and reserve a table. They do a set menu, and it is surprisingly expensive, compared to the $35 HK dollars a bowl of those noodles cost. We took Tim and Sue with us, and a meal for four, including tea, beer, etc cost around $100 US. It was all delicious though, and they served us more than enough food, so it is still decent value. And quite authentic, too. Easily the best Sichuan restaurant I've been to in Hong Kong. When Spicygirl sends me their address and contact info, I'll revise the post to include it. Tim and Sue Half-Eaten Spread Spicygirl and PR Fight It Out
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/12/2005 10:20:00 PM| |

 
We’ve got a four-day weekend coming up and I’m headed off to Goa tomorrow along with some friends. It’ll be my only chance to check out what is probably the most famous beach destination in India, so I jumped at the opportunity. I’m falling way behind on posting about the trip to Hong Kong, so I’ll try to make a meager start here, and finish sometime after I get back next week. I arrived on September 3 and spent eleven days there. Spicygirl moved to HK at the end of July, and it’s been a difficult adjustment for the both of us. I’m just glad she’s got a good job with meaningful work in her field. Hong Kong is probably one of the most dynamic cities in the world, certainly one of my personal favorites. It has it all: food, scenery, nightlife, culture, international variety, you name it. After spending time there, it was really hard to return here, and I’m regretting more than ever the fact that I did not get that HK assignment. I take solace in the knowledge that Taipei will bring its own rewards, and it is also a city with a tremendous amount on offer. One thing that I most enjoyed this trip was shopping for books. HK is truly a book lover’s paradise, especially for China buffs. It used to be so for English language China resources, though that has changed: those are now as expensive, or more so than in the west. Even so, I still bit the bullet and bought three, which I hope to post reviews in the near future: Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday; China Hands by James Lilley; and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost, by Jonathan Fenby. It’s still a great place for Chinese-language books, and I brought back a suitcase full. In fact, I was amazed at the range of Chinese language China-related books for sale. I don’t know the state of censorship in Hong Kong, and whether it’s enforced by Beijing or is self-imposed, but it is easy to find books scathingly critical of the CCP. Anyway, I have enough in the way of reading material to keep me occupied on the Goa beaches! I didn’t spend the whole time book hunting though: Spicygirl and PR on the Peak Damon, Tim and Spicygirl on the Star Ferry View from Spicygirl’s 21st floor Mid Levels Flat View from Tim and Sue’s luxury apartment Good Eatin’: Sichuan hotpot HK-style. Sue, Tim, PR, Spicygirl Tim is one of my best friends from law school. He ended up getting a dream job in the HK office of a Big Law firm. His wife Sue is also a lawyer, but is now spending time raising their son Damon. There’s also another on the way. They have a beautiful flat with a magnificent view of the harbor. I can’t believe they want to move! Their flat is in the aptly named Belcher's Towers. I say this because Tim is a founding father (albeit on double secret probation) of our UCLA law school secret sect, the Free Lunch Society (FLS). The sole purpose of this organization was for its members to attend any and all catered functions on the campus of UCLA. Most were free, but several were not, or were open to members-only. This is where our secret stealth came into play. I still wonder if Brother Feedbag (our 2L recruit) kept the tradition alive.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/06/2005 11:55:00 PM| |

 
the little princeI’d like to share this picture, because I believed it lost, either through my own negligence, or the recent fire in my house. It is my favorite photograph from my childhood, and has been as long as I can remember. That young rapscallion you see is me, when I was about four years old. The man is my father. It was the last photograph we ever took together. He died in 1971 when I was five; he was only 26 years old. I recall him quite clearly, in fact he is in my very earliest memories, but the caveat is that these are only the adoring, worshipful recollections of a small boy. As I became older, my relatives on his side of the family made it a point to tell me about the kind of man he was, and how much of him they see in me, and for that I will always be grateful. I still remember the day we took this picture. He and my mother had already separated by then, so I only saw him occasionally. It may not be clear, but in the background is Lake Pontchartrain, a large freshwater lake in New Orleans. It was extremely breezy that day, which explains our tousled hair. His girlfriend at the time took our photo, and even though color film was widely available, she used black and white. I’m glad she did. I think everyone who knew my father treasures this photograph of us. It is a priceless gift she created. I wish I knew who and where this woman is now so I could thank her.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 10/03/2005 10:30:00 PM| |