My neighbor Al...

Carmon

...was a gunner in the Navy on a sub chaser in the later years of WWII in the South Pacific. They sank one sub during his tour of duty. I'm glad he made it back, 'cause he's a great neighbor. He's a wealth of neighborhood history. Living just about his whole life here in the Southside, he often describes the main drag of Carson St. as it used to be, long before the advent of suburbia and shopping malls.

Al was kind enough to share with me a few of his vintage personal photos and suffer the pains of allowing me to make some new ones. That's him in his right hands and the boat he spent about two years on in his left. He also had a shot of a south pacific island bar and beer garden complete with palm trees and hundreds of sailors. And then there was the 8x10 of his group of selectees lined up classroom portrait style at their send off party at the Lithuanian Hall around the corner some 64 years ago. I could only begin to describe the varying expressions on the faces of the men pictured. I guess since they were drafted near the end of the war, at least they had a better chance of coming home.

War sucked then and it sucks now. For reasons right or wrong, it's a terrible thing. But, I bet that a great many of the cogs in the war machines of nations throughout history were and are as cool as Al.

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