Flying sideways over Mt. Fuji

This had to have been a pretty difficult photograph to get, especially if you thik the plane above him was also flying sideways.

From a 1961 US Navy Far East Cruise Book who were pretty casual with their captioning.

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Drunken Sailors

From Cosmopolitan, 1972 

One thing you don't see much of anymore are these Avedonian model w/ non-model action-oriented group photos. Fortunately our library is loaded with them!

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Navy Bean

Speaking of Mainers in World War II, this is a US Navy Officer's Briefcase, made by L.L. Bean for officers who were being trained as navigators to hold their maps, charts, instructions, cotton twine, hemp, etc... Designed by Warnie Bean, L.L.'s son. From his original shop drawings, the sides were "to be printed by the Freeport Press, 1/4" cuts to be made by S. Barker, and notches & marks (lining piece) by us". Zipper by Talon. May 26, 1943. Pin It

Knotical

Last year Linda and I went to a garage sale up in Falmouth, Maine. The garage was really a newly built barn, with pulleys and hanging canoes and kayaks, snowboards, skis, etc... of a very outdoorsy family. Mixed in with some newer furniture and knick knacks were some old camping equipment and these intricately knotted, awesome, immense macrame rope hangings. The man told me they were made by his late father while at sea as an officer in the Navy during World War II, during the down time, as knot practice. These are the type of beautiful, cool, handmade, one-of-a kind things we love finding, and as much as we would've liked to have kept the pair together, at 20 dollars each, both were unfortunately out of our budget, even for masterpieces of American maritime craft (it was a lean year). So we chose the more intricate one with the three baskets, and drove away, my face symbolically pressed forlornly against the back window. 

Then, as luck would have it, a few weeks ago the same family had another sale, and the other macrame was still there, draped over a canoe, apparently unwanted by anyone but us, and this time for 10 dollars- a nice reward for spending the past year on the widow's walk.

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