We have clearance, Clarence.: Japan

It's hard not to get overwhelmed by the neatly stacked boxes of slides and photos in my closet. They are the legacy left behind by family that is no longer here, handed down to me because no one else would take them. Although it's not accidental that I was the one who gladly carted them home from Illinois. As a cultural anthropology major, amateur photographer, and part-time writer, I'm fascinated by the stories that they tell. The social scientist in me wants to catalog them, figure out exactly where they were taken and who's in them. The photographer wants to color correct them preserve them, and the blogger wants to share them with the world.

I've come to the realization that it will likely take too long to scan all of them and then categorize them by time and place. So I've decided to just start tackling them 10 at a time, somewhat randomly, and posting them here. They are already sorted by the places my family lived, although I'm not sure that these labels are entirely accurate.

This first set labeled "JAPAN" would have been taken in the late 40s, after the defeat of Japan in WWII. As an army officer, my grandfather was part of the allied occupation and reconstruction that took place from 1945 - 1952.