vintage Friday on Saturday

While my plan for Friday included the vintage photo, my timing got messed up by another ant attack on the pantry. They found the top shelf with the cat's dry food! And my magic circle of baking powder (thanks, Oma!) and cinnamon (thanks, Shannon!) could not work, because they found an entry crack inside the pantry. I nuked them again with windex, a decent dose of pinesol (thanks, Amber!) and finally cinnamon. I just love how kitchen and pantry smell of cinnamon!

Back to vintage ...day.

This picture was given to me by a German friend, who used to write humorous columns for a small local newspaper in Germany. I met him, when I worked in a nursing home for a while and took care of his wife. I always enjoyed talking to him and hearing his stories. He was of course much older than me, could have been my grandfather..

One day he gave me this picture, I don't remember why, possibly because I had asked him about the war. He gave me the photo to keep, it shows him in the white coat with a friend in Russia. It has always fascinated me, knowing him as a funny person, always joking, happy and good humored and then the contrast to the situation they must have been in, when the shot was taken. Cold, scared, hungry, fighting a war, that had not been their choice, but yet seeing them in a splitsecond where they apparently managed to push all that away and smiled for the camera, had some wine and relaxed with a cigarette while sitting in front of what seems to be snowed in ruins.

My friend passed away last year. I will remember him.