Nap

Suburban Chicago, April 1971. Gigi has found her spot.

Dad pays bills.

Suburban Chicago, June 1972. It's weekend work.

A Wider View

Suburban Chicago, April 1974. Mom knits while she visits with my Dad's paternal Aunt Victoria.

RIP Margaret Juntwait

The "voice of the Met."

Grab-a-Book: Reluctant Edition

Suburban Chicago, November 1957. We kept and used that radio for another forty years.

Evening Knitting

Suburban Chicago, April 1974. My Mom and my Dad's paternal Aunt, Victoria, visit during Victoria's stay at our home.

Listening

Door County, Wisconsin, November 1976. Dad enjoyed listening to the shortwave radio.

UPDATE: Contrast this image.

Sunday Paper: You're-Wearing-That Edition

Suburban Chicago, 1972. I read the paper while waiting for a ride. That day, Mom asked me to go to a shop—C.D. Peacock Jeweler in Oakbrook Center—to pick up a ring she had left there for repairs. Oakbrook was a tony place, and back then, people dressed up when they visited that mall.

That morning, I had put on some tattered jeans, a casual top, and a bandana. My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, questioned whether I should go to Oakbrook dressed "like that," but I assured her it was okay because I'd be running in and out of Peacock's quickly, and I wouldn't be making a promenade around the mall.

The person who drove me to Oakbrook waited in the car as I popped into Peacock's. While a clerk fetched Mom's ring, I saw a mother and daughter leisurely browsing the diamond case, and I overheard them chatting. They spoke in Lithuanian—and, confident no one understood them—spent a few minutes critiquing my appearance, and wondering how Peacock's had let someone "dressed like a hippie" into the shop. When I'd paid for the ring repair, I turned to the women and, in Lithuanian, thanked them for the compliment about my fashion sense. The exchange could have stayed in my memory as just a satisfying moment of snark, but it taught me to be careful in public—no matter what language one speaks.

On the way home from Oakbrook Mall, Don McLean's "American Pie" played on the radio, and the driver explained the meaning of the song's lyrics to me.

A Conversation about "First Wavers"

Chicago's WBEZ interviews Lithuanian Americans about Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

We are leaving now.

My Parents took a month-long vacation each summer. Who takes off four consecutive weeks from work these days? My Mom and her medical partner made an arrangement for the annual holiday when they started working together. Extended vacations were more common where my Dad worked because things at the lab moved slowly in the summer.

I can't imagine being away from home for a month; after all, I start to anticipate the return almost as soon as I reach a destination. I don't recall whether my Parents paid bills in advance or what steps they took to secure the house. I do remember how Dad and I picked up the pile of mail that the Post Office had held during the interval. Oh: our dog, Gigi, spent the month with the woman who had given her to us.

We often stayed in places that had no phone service, so if something had happened back home, we were be difficult to reach. There were no televisions, and many of our (mountainous) destinations had spotty radio reception. As a result, we infrequently caught the news. We were in the Badlands, for example, when Dad saw a headline about the Richard Speck murders. I was glad we weren't in Chicago because I reasoned that if Speck hadn't been caught, then I would be hiding under my bed. We were in Austria in 1971 when we saw a German-language edition of TIME Magazine announcing "Satchmo is Dead."

My Best Friend and my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, sent letters to me. I anxiously checked the mail at our lodgings each day. By the time the vacation ended, I was ready to go home.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, July 1963. The best part of a vacation is its end.

Sunday Tea

Kaunas, Lithuania, early 1930s. My favorite photos are the ones in which people naturally show expressions of love. These are friends of my Dad's older cousin, Henry, and his wife, Suzanne.

Thanks to my Kaunas Cousin for making this photo available to us.

Insectothopter

The "Insectothopter" is one of the items on display at the CIA Museum.
 
There are more pieces from the collection here. My Dad would have loved the pipe radio. Some items are more primitive, even if "[d]etails of pigeon missions are still classified."

Tuned in.

Suburban Chicago, Spring 1972. Dad develops film in his "darkroom"—the Master Bathroom. The shortwave radio sits on the counter; Dad often used it to listen to "Voice of America."

Radio Waves

Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, about 1962. My Dad's cousin, Henry, and Henry's wife, Suzanne, tune the radio. This photo makes me melancholy. I wonder to what broadcast they had tuned.