False flag? The marines at the Iwo Jima Memorial seem to be raising a 48 star flag. Should have been 49 stars as Alaska joined the Union weeks before the photo was made. The 50th state, Hawaii, officialy joined later that year. Have you ever seen a 49 star U.S. flag?

How short? So how short was I for crying out loud!? I was seven at the time and supposed to be short, but jeez I can't even see the top of the statue! That's Dad loading his pipe, a thing he did a lot.

Quiet tomb. Family legend tells how fresh snow in DC cleared the roads of traffic and we were nearly the only visitors to Mt. Vernon and we got a private tour and I got to hold the key to the Bastille that Lafayette gave to Washington as a present. Of all of this I remember nada, and this pic of Washington's tomb shows hardly any snow at all.

Porch sitters

Mom and Dad on the porch of the Custis Lee Mansion at Arlington National Cemetery. Mom was heavily pregnant with my sister Susan, and probably welcomed the chance to sit down for a moment while her seven year old ran around burning energy.

Edsel Memorial

That's my mom in our rented Edsel at the Jefferson Memorial, January 1959. Gosh, you could park anywhere in 1959.

Snowy steps

Hard to see, but there's snow on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with a cleared lane going up the middle.

Ford's Cadillac

Check out the air conditioners in the windows at Ford’s Theater. And the shiny late model Cadillac parked out front. Washington, DC, January 1959. The photographer - me - was seven years old.

White House fire hydrant

Mom and Dad and the White House are all in this photo, but the main subject seems to be the fire hydrant. What else could you expect from a 7 year old photographer? Jeez! January, 1959.

First Trip

First trip. My mom and I flew from Detroit to Washington in January 1959 to visit my dad, who was in DC training for his first overseas assignment in the foreign service. I was seven. I took these pictures with my Brownie, but recall little about any of these grand sites. What did stay in my young mind was the talking myna bird at the hotel reception desk, and the mechanically-heaving chest of Captain John Smith as he was being saved by Pocahontas at the Wax Museum. Did you go on a trip when you were seven? What do your remember most about it?