The Haircut - Wordless Wednesday

(Original Image and Text, Copyright (c) 2011 Cynthia Shenette) This photo captures one of those ordinary slice of life moments.  My dad, Henry Albert Shenette, spent a couple of years stationed in the Philippines in the late 1930s and early 1940s as part of the Thirty-First United States Infantry.  I don't think my dad is either one of the soldiers shown in this photo.  It's hard to tell for sure especially given that the man in the barber chair has his hand in front of his face.  He clearly does not seem to want to have his photo taken. 

I thought the scene was an interesting one.  Look at the man on the left sitting on the cot.  He reminded me of a story my dad use to tell about his time in the Philippines.  Apparently one of my dad's army buddies was quite a sound sleeper.  My dad and some of the other guys found it incredibly amusing to pick up the poor guy's cot, carry it outside, and put it in a stream or wherever else they could think of.  When the hapless sleeper opened his eyes in in the morning he never quite knew where he was going to wake up.

Luckily my dad's time in the Philippines ended when it did.  My dad said he was on the last ship out of the Philippines before the Japanese invaded the islands at the beginning of World War II.  According to one of his papers he returned to the U.S. on November 19, 1941.  The Japanese began their invasion of the Philippine Islands on December 8, 1941.


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Wordless Wednesday: A Good Catch
Tombstone Tuesday: Francois Chenette, Civil War Soldier
Wordless Wednesday: Dad, Someplace Cold
Remembering Pearl Harbor