Today I got a package from the Exposures catalog. It contained two more photo storage boxes, another set of album pages so I can finish the Gran-picture album, and a rosewood panoramic-photo-size frame.

In 1987 I visited the Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC. As far as I know, I have only one friend whose name appears on the wall, Bob Haney, who was a year ahead of me at the first high school I went to, and who worked at the bowling alley on Saturdays when our team competed in the teen league. Given that I graduated in 1968, and went to high school in two small rural communities where only a very small percentage of each graduating class went on to college, I count myself fortunate that there is only that one name.

Even one is too many.

That day, a kind volunteer climbed up on a ladder and made me a rubbing of Bob’s name. Robert B. Haney Jr. Panel W11, line 91. I’ve saved it all these years, intending to frame it. The panoramic frame from Exposures is just the right size, but the mat inside it isn’t. I’m going to go to Aaron Brothers and get some archival mat board and use my Christmas-present mat cutter to fix that. I can’t think of a better way to start using that gift.

Here’s to you, Bob, and all you could have been.

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