Armed and Ready to Fire

August 6, 2010 Thursday


Today at the library, a young man came in without a shirt on. That, in itself, was unusual in the library. But his tattoos were what caught my attention. He had two pistols tattooed on his torso exactly where they would have been if he had been wearing a belt and holsters. (Yes, his pants were riding low so you could see most of the guns.) It made me laugh. The dress code here in Broome is more relaxed than in places that don’t have a beach. No shoes is quite normal. A swim suit cover-up is often worn over a swimming suit into any establishment in town. You get used to it.
Yesterday Orson went downtown to tell people about our display at the library. He talked to one woman who was very excited to find out that she could come to the library and we would help her look on the internet for her grandfather. She showed up today while Orson was gone looking for our cell phone which has disappeared. (Notice, I said the phone did it—not that we lost it.) Anyway, the lady and I got on the computer and went to a couple of family history websites and did a search for her grandfather and came up with nothing. So, as a last ditch effort, I put his name into Google, and it worked! Some military organization here in Australia has put up all the information about veterans. Her grandfather was listed as entering the military in 1914. It gave his date and place of birth (which she hadn’t known before) and all kinds of stuff about his military service. She knew it was him because it gave her grandmother’s name as the spouse. She hadn’t even known he’d served in World War I. And get this, he signed up when he was 44! We then found a cemetery listing (again on Google) that told where and when he died and was buried. She was so excited. It was fun to be able to be part of that discovery.