at the tail end of wwii, my poppop (grandpa for those of you who aren't used to pa/de/md/nj regional dialect) was on shore leave, and went home to his folks beverly, nj. on the way there, he met a young british sailor who was also on shore leave and wanted to visit beverly in order to see how similar it was to his own hometown of - i swear you'll never guess where he was from - beverley, england.

oh, you guessed it? good for you, nerd.

anyway, poppop invited the young british sailor to join him. he showed him around town and invited him to his home for dinner. my great grandparents were happy to have their son home and to entertain his new friend. i'm not sure what happened after that. if they kept in touch at all or if they went their seperate ways. i do know that, some time in the 80s, poppop managed to track down the young british sailor, now an old man, and reconnected with his war buddy.

poppop and grandma would visit england a few times after they reconnected. i have a stack of books, brochures, and souvenirs he brought back with him. there were, at one point, photos. most were lost due to improper storage or fire.

in 2011, i tried to scan some negatives from one of his trips in a futile attempt to get those photos back. they sat in a thumb drive untouched for years until i ran them through gimp. they're attrocious, but i like them.

they're mostly of horses and a couple buildings i don't recognize. i'd like to visit them some day, though.

pssssst - if they're too small to see, copy the image url and paste it into your browser.