Way back in the distant past my parents went square dancing almost every Saturday night at the Rome Civic Center, a modest 1930’s rock building.

The box in the top photo is designed specifically for records, and it holds many hours worth of square dancing music.

One side of each record was music without calls, and the other side was the same music with calls.

Their dance club was the Western Promenaders. That club still meets, but in their own “barn” that we pass on the way to our veterinarian’s office. Actually, they meet in the third building on that site, the previous two having been damaged or destroyed, first by snow, then by fire.

Smithsonian Magazine calls square dancing a uniquely American form, influenced by various European styles of dance, but also by native American and African dances. A number of the calls derive from French, apparently because of anti-British sentiment immediately after the Revolutionary War.

I remember hearing callers say “allemand left” or “allemand right”, and thinking that it meant “all men”, but according to Merriam-Webster, allemande is “a 17th and 18th century court dance developed in France from a German folk dance,” among other things. Wikipedia says “do-si-do” is a corruption of the French dos-à-dos, which means back-to-back.

I vaguely remember watching my parents dance, but my brother and I spent most of the time running around inside and out with the other kids who had been brought by their parents. Neither group paid much attention to the other. The kids were too engrossed in their running and screaming, and the parents were way too busy trying to follow the dance calls. I don’t know whether there was a set of dance calls that repeated or if it was completely free-form, but when the caller said “allemande left” everyone had to “allemande left” or there would be a pileup on the floor.

The Western Promenaders were formed in 1956 and moved out of the Civic Center in 1960. I do not think my parents ever danced at the current location, so everything I remember had to have happened between those two dates. That means my parents no longer square danced after around 1960.

I have no idea how my parents ended up with the record box full of square dance music. There is a sticker on each record with the names of a couple who lived in a town about 20 miles south of Rome, but they died years ago. I could offer the records to the current Western Promenaders, but I doubt anyone in the club has a record player. I might consider playing a record or two, but we don’t have a record player either. I think at this point, their only value is as a curiosity.

September 1944 to May 1945

Many years ago my father carried a camera across Europe. He took a lot of photographs along the way, between calling in artillery strikes on the German Army. He compiled two albums that I was completely unaware of until my aunt gave them to me.

The first was dated September 1944 to May 1945. My father’s division, the 104th Infantry, landed in France in September 1944, and, of course, the war in Europe ended in May 1945. The photos are small; some of them look like contact prints from a 35 mm camera. They are poorly printed, somewhat fuzzy, and with flare in a lot of them. I copied them by photographing them with my iPhone, and then mildly editing them to try to bring out more detail, so the quality is even worse than in the originals.

The photographs are attached to paper that is yellow and brittle. They probably haven’t been seen in 50 years, or more. Most of the images are not identified. There are Amerian soldiers, and German or possibly Belgian civilians. There are German prisoners. There are far-reaching vistas. There are blown-up houses. There are pretty girls. There are puppies.

He was not a combat photographer; he had other things to do when bullets and cannon shells were flying, so most of the images are of the quiet times between combat.

These are some of the photos he took, or were taken of him, during his time in the war.

This is my father in front of a building that is not identified. I think I recognize it from another photo, and, if I’m right, it was in a town called Konzendorf, or Kunzendorf, although the only locations I can find for such a town don’t look like they are in the right place.

If this is the right place, it’s where he had a CP (command post?).

This was what he called an assault gun.

Here some GIs are working on a truck.

This is my father standing in front of a grave.

Here is what he said on the back of the print.

In case you can’t read the last part, it says, “He was about 19 years old.” It’s also identified as at Konzendorf.

Here are some German PWs.

One looks like a kid. The back of this photograph identifies it as immediately after the Roer River crossing.

This dapper fellow appears to be a Nazi officer, although I can’t tell what his rank was from his uniform. He must have dressed for his surrender.

This German soldier doesn’t appear to be wearing a dress uniform. I have no idea what he’s looking through binoculars. Maybe a long trek back home.

The 104th was one of the units that liberated the Nordhausen concentration camp on 11 April 1945. By the time the Army units reached the camp, most of the prisoners had been moved to other camps. Many of them died along the way. A few prisoners were left at the camp, along with between 1000 and 3000 bodies.

This is what my father wrote on the back of this photograph.

My father never mentioned this camp.

The 104th  contacted the Soviet Army at Pretzsch on 26 April.

There are a few more photographs in the first album which I assume were taken either after the war in Europe ended, or at least after the active combat ended. This is one.

Here she is again.

There is no identification on these photos. I have to assume she was a German, but she looks pretty happy to be a German in April or May 1945.

I will post some photographs later from my father’s second album, “Belgium Germany France England, May 1945 to December 1945.” There will be puppies.