Which one of these is not like the others?

At 7-8 months, Zoe is still as obsessed with putting everything she can into her mouth as ever. Not a new habit, nor one that appears to be subsiding. Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. (Of course, her sister was no different. And it never seemed to have anything to do with "teething"!)

All You Need Is Love

Your Great Grandfather: E.O.Wollan

Zoe, you share your November 6th birthday with your great grandfather, Boppa's father, Ernest O. ("E.O.") Wollan. So it's great timing that this recognition occurred just recently, around both of your birthdays.

E.O. Wollan was an accomplished nuclear physicist who performed some groundbreaking research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory back in the 1940s. In 1994, ten years after Ernie had passed away, one of his partners, Clifford Shull, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the work they performed together. Unfortunately they don't award it posthumously, so Ernie was not able to share that distinction. But someone wrote a nice little story about Ernie here (click here to read). The recent news out of Oak Ridge citing Ernie's 1944 letter is below (click on picture to enlarge).

Ernest Wollan (left) and Clifford Shull (standing) working with their neutron diffraction unit at the Oak Ridge Graphite Reactor in 1950.

Here is Grandpa Ernie with Eric & Kristina back in in 1971.

I have not yet made it that far south, but apparently there are some rocks/islands off the coast of Argentina named after my grandfather and his partner -- Wollan Island and Shull Rocks. Talk about cool!

Summer Solstice / Attack of the 50 Ft. Girl

Hannah celebrates her 2-and-a-half year birthday, blowing bubbles, playing with her water table, and terrorizing the ants at her feet, during a rare sunny summer day on our little patio.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Like mother like daughter at 2 1/2 years....except for the mullet
(and now you know why I refuse to cut Hannah's hair!).

49 Years may seem like a LONG time...

...to wait for the Chicago Blackhawks to win the Stanley Cup again.....

But I'm sure it seemed like just yesterday that Ann & Tom got married.
Happy 49th Anniversary (June 10th)!!

Happy Bday Uncle Eric!

November 1968
Happy Birthday!!
All our love,
Kristina, Jon & Hannah

Old Glory, How About That?

Hannah, there is one person I wish you could have met before she traveled on to other worlds: my mom's mom, your great Grandmother, Beatrice H. Brown. Most everyone called her Betty; I always called her Grandmom. She respected everything in the world, and in turn, everything in the world seemed to show her respect. She was born this day in 1917. I think you would absolutely LOVE her, as her favorite thing to say was "Now that's a curious thing," and your favorite thing to say is "How 'bout dat!" Perhaps you see the word like she does. I like to think that you do, or that you will... I do not have many pictures of Grandmom to share with you, but her personality shines throughout the few I do have. Here are a couple pictures taken in 1982, when I was eight years old and Grandmom was sixty-five. They are from a children's book written about my family maple sugaring in Vermont called Sugaring Time. When I read passages from this book and look at the pictures, I feel like she is sitting right next to me, turning the pages:

"One morning, the melting, earthy smell of spring up in the meadow suddenly turns sweet a few hundred feet from the sugar house. Steam rolls out the open ends of the house and smoke rises from the chimney in back. Being inside is like sitting in a maple cloud surrounded by the muffled roar of the fire and the bubbling tumble of boiling sap. Betty Brown and the children are there, their cheeks wet and shiny in the maple mist. This is their first celebration, except birthdays, since Christmas. Boiling time is like a party, a party that celebrates mud and greenness, sweetness and renewed life... Alice (my Mom, your Grandmom) scoops up cups of boiling sap and steeps tea bags in them for sap tea. The children drink it while sitting on logs, using up-side down buckets as tea tables. After they finish, Betty leans on her walking stick listening to the thrum of the fire and the wild din of her grandson Jeremy (your uncle) beating a raucous sugar song on the upturned buckets... [Later] Jeremy, lulled by the bubbling tumble of the boiling sap, is just the right size to fall asleep in his grandma's arms."

Every minute is a celebration to enjoy and ponder to your Great Grandma Betty. I say "is" instead of "was," because your Great Grandma assured us all that she would be embarking on greater adventures upon departing this world. I take her at her word. Perhaps she has been able to stop by San Francisco in between her adventures and catch a glimpse of you growing up. Again, I like to think so. Today, her birthday, is conveniently "Flag Day." It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress. Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, though on June 14, 1937, Pennsylvania became the first (and only) U.S. state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday. Title 36 of the United States Code, Subtitle I, Part A, CHAPTER 1, 110 is the official statute on Flag Day; however, it is at the President's discretion to proclaim officially the observance. This poster is from the same year Betty was born.

Happy Flag day! Happy birthday Grandmom!
To mud and greenness, sweetness and renewed life...
How 'Bout Dat!!!!

Crissy Field, East Beach "Runway"

Hannah, here is the history of the ground in this picture, that you, your mom (she took the picture) and I are walking on, known as Crissy Field (thanks, Wikipedia and nps.gov)...

The story of Crissy Field is inexorably linked to the early history of aviation in the United States. Named in honor of Major Dana Crissy, Crissy Field was the military’s first Air Coast Defense Station on the Pacific coast. Between the World Wars, research and innovation at Crissy Field helped develop the air power that proved essential to the Allied victory in 1945. Here, flying records were set, long-distance flights started and ended, and early aviators charted territory above the clouds.

The area was originally a rich salt marsh and a gathering ground for Indians. It later served as the landing site of Spanish explorers and Russian, English and Boston traders. Following the conclusion of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition it became one of America's foremost military airfields and a portion of the Presidio army base.

Major Henry 'Hap' Arnold led the successful effort to change the name to Crissy Field in honor of Major Dana H. Crissy, who crashed and died on 8 October 1919 in a de Havilland DH-4B during an Air Service transcontinental reliability test while attempting a landing at Salt Lake City, Utah.
During the 1920’s, Crissy Field’s place in aviation history was secured through a series of record-breaking long-distance flights. In 1924, the first successful Dawn-to-Dusk transcontinental flight ended at Crissy Field. Later that year, the army's Round-the-World Race stopped at Crissy Field, with Lieutenant Lowell H. Smith of Crissy Field leading the flyers upon their return. In 1925, two navy seaplanes took off from Crissy Field in the first attempt to fly from the continental United States to Hawaii. Expected to last twenty-six hours, the trip took twelve days and was only partially completed by one plane, whose crew had to be rescued at sea. Two years later, army lieutenants Lester J. Maitland and Albert F. Hegenberger readied their three-engine Fokker Bird of Paradise at Crissy Field and flew non-stop to the islands.

Though initially perceived as an ideal location for a coastal airfield, Crissy Field was not without flaws. Wind and fog often contributed to poor flying conditions and the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 made flights around the bay even more difficult. Moreover, Crissy Field’s proximity to the water made it a potentially easy target for enemy ships. In 1936, shortly after the activation of Hamilton Field in Marin County, Crissy Field closed as a first-line air base.

After the air corps left Crissy Field, the administration building was occupied by the headquarters of the 30th U.S. Infantry Regiment and the landing field was routinely used as an assembly area for troop mobilization. During World War II, temporary wooden barracks were erected at both ends of the airfield and the former air mail hangar became barracks and classrooms for the army's top-secret Military Intelligence Service Language School. Here, second-generation Japanese Americans—called Nisei soldiers—were trained as battlefield interpreters.

In the years after World War II, the Sixth Army Flight Detachment operated light airplanes and helicopters from the paved runway that replaced the grass landing strip on Crissy Field. By this time, Crissy Field traffic consisted primarily of liaison flights and MedEvac flights bringing wounded Vietnam soldiers from Travis Air Force Base to Letterman Hospital (which is now George Lucas' Studios). In 1974, Crissy Field was finally closed to fixed-wing aircraft, although helicopter operations continued for several years.

In 1962, along with the entire Presidio Army Base of San Francisco, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. The airfield was closed in 1974.

Crissy Field was redesigned by Hargreaves Associates in 1994, and it passed from being a military airport into an open space that is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In order to create the new site, 87,000 tons of hazardous materials were removed from the site itself and the tidal wetlands were redesigned to simulate the wetlands that existed before the military appropriated the site and used the area as a dump and landfill location. During 1998-2000, individuals and groups from schools, civic organizations and corporations planted over 100,000 native plants, in efforts to restore natural systems. Community volunteers are still an important part of the efforts to maintain long-term stewardship of Crissy Field.