Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken thirty years ago, in July 1991.

We're sitting on the Mall waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks, and we arrived hours early to stake out an uncrowded claim. (These skills would later come in handy at Wolf Trap). My friends, James and Ian, came along for the trip and we spent the afternoon alternating between card games and finding the nearest port-a-potty.

The picnic blanket we're sitting on was the defacto picnic blanket kept in the car trunk for all sorts of weekend trips up and down the Eastern seaboard. The back always had little bits of dried spackle from the blanket's previous life as a drop cloth.

I actually looked up Ian after pulling out this photo and he added the following context: "I remember James's parents were mad because he never got in touch with them before we went and they showed up to pick him up from your house. Such a pre-cell phone problem".