Apparently the autism awareness symbol is a puzzle piece. Consider me informed.

Here's my great-grandmother.

I have a new computer at work; I am thrilled. I spent most of today (re)familiarizing myself with various databases and search engines and writing tutorials about how to use them. I need to write search strategies and reading comprehension sheets as well. I was glad of the air-conditioning today. The other building is having problems with the A/C and the heat outside was like a second skin. I got in my car at lunch time and the dashboard thermometer read 107. I need to remember to put my driving gloves back in the car so I can steer better and more easily handle the car key now that it's summer.

My parents drove to our poor flooded and stripped house over the weekend to save as many wet things as possible. My grandmother's year books and fairy tale books are gone but I was expecting that. So they brought me back a plastic bin of soaked things. While you don't want to store old paper in plastic (the fumes given off by old paper products would hasten their deterioration), it kept the moisture in long enough to allow me to separate a lot of pages. It's much harder if not impossible to peel apart dry paper. A number of photos are gone, stuck together with their own chemicals, but other photos remain along with a number of newspapers and correspondence.

There are a few papers dealing with the Hindenburg disaster. My grandparents were just parking the car to go watch it land when they saw it explode. One paper deals with conspiracy plots about sabotage. I think Bolsheviks were involved, I haven't gotten a chance to look closely.

There are a couple announcing the death of President McKinley. I'm drying one of those out now.

There are a lot of invitations to my great-grandfather to go to various events. He was chief clerk to the secretary of state of New Jersey during the 20's, 30's and 40's. Now the title is assistant secretary. There are a number of photographs of him working in his office. They must have had an official photographer. He always looks like he's been surprised at work but they had to have set those shots up.

There must be an entire ream of paper dedicated to my great-grandmother's high school graduation, including her last report card (she was an excellent speller and did quite well in rhetoric) and a poem she composed on a typewriter to commemorate the event.

There are several booklets on weird subjects. "The Germany of Asia" written around 1917 about Japan. "The Hole in the Hauptmann Case" about the man convicted in the Lindbergh baby case. I'm still drying that out but I think Bolsheviks are involved in that also. There's one on the German-Bolshevik connection written around WWI as well. There's Masonic Temple stuff but that's not surprising as my great-grandfather was a Mason.

Once everything is dried out I'll start taking photos.

I'm reading Treasure Island because I wanted an adventure book and I remember enjoying it as a kid.