Family ...

So this past summer my Uncle Walter died.  He was 95.  He was an interesting man with an interesting life.  He was the husband of my mother's sister.  She was born in 1920 and is still living in Maryland.  He was younger, born in March of 1921.

I didn't know him well enough to write much.  He was a professor at the University of Maryland, geography I believe.  One of his "hobbies" was making wine -- on a large scale.  The day after the memorial service, I went with my cousins, their families, and a bunch of their friends for a day at the vineyard -- picking grapes, pressing grapes, bottling wine.

 

This was something I'd been wanting to do for the last few years since I started drinking and appreciating wine.  Nevada and I had talked about going to the east coast for the harvest ...

I had participated in the harvest once before.  Prior to moving to California, the fam and I went to Cremona and picked grapes and pressed some wine.  The kids swam in the pool -- a pool where the water was directly from the Patuxent River ...  It was a good time.  No pictures though.

My uncle also used to love taking pictures.  He had a dark room in the basement.  There were always pictures around their house, usually black & white, of children, grandchildren, houses, Africa...

This is a picture taken by my uncle (notice the camera in the mirror) -- probably pre-children.  You gotta love his Charlie Chaplin-esque pose and my aunt's expression.

The following is the link to a blog post by a friend of Ila & Walter's.

And if you're interested, here's a link to a web site with pictures from Uganda/Kenya.