Irish Snowman

As one might surmise from the various clues to be seen, this photograph was taken on St. Patrick's Day, 1971. I am a little over a month shy of my third birthday; my mother is 22. This is probably the first snowman that I had any direct participation in, and certainly the one I have the most vivid memories of (though that can probably be attributed to the existence of the photograph as much as any other factor).The eyes and buttons are radishes (a vegetable I otherwise have no tolerance for), the mouth is obviously carrot-based, and the hat is, I think, from Hallmark.

Other Fun Facts:

• This is the front yard of 139-A Cochran Road, where we lived from 1970-74.
• I still have a scar under my arm where I got pinched badly by shifting parts of the swing set in the background.
• The scarf and hat were particular favorites of my mother in those days; I still have said scarf, currently stored with my own seldom-used winter accoutrements.

Cardboard Bunny

This is pretty self-explanatory, I suppose. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't find a white or colored piece of cardboard, but its drabness has an certain low-key appeal. It would be another two or three years before I'd start using an X-acto knife with any regularity (and even then, I usually favored big scary box-cutters instead), so this was cut with poked-through scissors, hence the ragged edges.