Saturday, August 15, 2009

MEMORIES OF BOOT CAMP

What the well dressed Navy Recruit wore circa 1958. When I found this photo of me it brought back a lot of memories. Seeing the gun rack behind me made me remember how tired my arms would get doing the “Manual of Arms” exercise with on of these rifles. The other thing I noticed was I was wearing the white stripes of a Seaman Recruit and wondered at what stage of boot camp did they switch me to the green stripes of an Airman Recruit. It must have been near or after graduation from boot camp when it was decided that I would go to Airman Prep School in Norman, OK.

One photographic note. One of the things I learned after the Navy while working in the graphic arts printing field was how to prepare an old Polaroid for scanning. Use Vaseline to coat the print and it will help to restore the gloss lost through the years. It doesn’t help a lot with the finger prints but if you scan at low sharpness that can help some. One more tip while I’m on the subject of scanning secrets. If you have prints that have ink marks from maybe being in contact with another print that had writing on the back and it transferred to the front of one of your prints use hair spray to safely remove the ink.

No comments: