chuckography

How my Blog was named...

Growing up here in Charleston in the 1950s, many of my fellow students at Bishop England knew that I was interested in taking pictures.

In fact, in my senior year BEHS somehow received a brand new Speed Graphic so my face often was hidden by that 4x5 large format camera as I covered sports and activities for the Annual.


After high school, bored and not mature enough to be interested in going to college, I joined the Marine Corps and was sent to Parris Island in July. Summertime in SC..what was I thinking? The only things moving in that heat and humidity were sand fleas. And recruits.

After boot camp you go up to Camp Lejeune, NC for some more combat training and then are assigned an "occupation." The day I stood in line to be interviewed and told what my career would be, the Corps was filling slots for future Military Police. Each man coming out was headed to MP school. I stood 6 feet tall and weighed about 130 pounds so I would have been the MP all the drunks would choose if there was a fight. Hmm. So I lied.

Well, not a complete lie. I said I was a trained photographer and had been published in TIME and LIFE magazine. The last part WAS a lie but they were picking MPs and didn't have time to check things out so I was assigned to the Base Photo Lab at Camp Lejeune. I would have been a skinny, lousy military cop.

Four years in the Corps convinced me that having a college education was VERY important and photography helped make that happen. More later.

Labels: Base Photo Lab, Camp Lejeune, MP school, sand fleas, Speed Graphic

posted by chucker @ 2:38 PM