Every Picture Tells a Story

Tea: Lemon

Music: AC/DC, "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)"

Time: Night.

Tonight, I took my son to a picture party for his high school strings group's trip to Australia.

There was food. There were, of course, pictures. There were videos (and, as usual, the homemade one was better than the one provided by the tour company).

And there was one moment that linked generations in my family.

My late father spent some time in Australia during World War II, on R and R from the brutal island-hopping battles of the Pacific Campaign. (His Marine unit fought at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester.)

He crossed the Pacific by ship, wondering if a torpedo would send his ship to the bottom and him into the water with the sharks. My son crossed in a jumbo jet, sleepless only because his seatmate ("some random adult from England") was snoring.

But one shot tonight -- a picture of Luna Park in Melbourne -- brought their trips together.

My father went there, escorting a young Australian woman whose sweetheart was off fighting. (It was an honorable arrangement, and my father an honorable man.) My son didn't go in, but his group stood outside the gate in the same place where his grandfather stood more than sixty years ago.

I wish they could have talked about Australia ... but I'll tell my son what I can of my father's time there. And I'll pray that he never needs R and R from a shooting war.