Laowai

Mom and Jennifer and I have been looking through old slides and scanning the best ones. We sorted through photos from 1960 to 1993 and it was interesting to see photos of dad’s reflector oven pop up over and over. It got me thinking about how something can be so pleasing that you want to capture it and you never grow tired of it. Things like a vase of flowers on my window sill. Or photos of a batch of cookies or bread fresh out of the oven. I never get tired of the exact same scene year after year. We also saw so many photos of fish – dad would take a picture and then put it back in the water. They seem to be all the same but when you think of them taken over years and years it makes a meaningful collection.

Dad would bring the reflector oven when we cooked a meal over a fire. He was always very enthusiastic about it. I have great memories of the biscuits that we would make or sometimes we would put crescent rolls in the oven. I suspect dad made the reflector oven when he was a boy scout – it starts out flat and you slot it together with little bits of match sticks.