holiday shopping

my mother susan and i were up bright and early friday morning for the unofficial holiday shopping kickoff better known as black friday. early morning rain yielded to sunny skies in the afternoon and we had a nice crowd at our faneuil hall marketplace store. there were plenty of folks browsing our selection of ted williams baseball photos but our historic boston street scene photographs were by far the biggest attraction of the day. our image of the hindenburg over boston is always a show stopper. we knew the general facts surounding the photo such as the fact that the image was from the morning of the same day it exploded in lakehurst, new jersey. however, through the years visitors to our store have shared some other great facts about the ill-fated dirigible. i was told by a lifelong boston resident that the hindenburg had circled boston for a better part of the late morning into the afternoon. this was due to inclement weather south of massachusetts towards lakehurst. this gentleman told me he remembers being in school and all the kids, and teacher, in his class ran to the window to see the huge air ship. he went on to tell me that later in the day he was outside playing baseball and the blimp passed over again. such an historic event made even more interesting with that great story. my father, and founder of the brearley collection, always told us that our photos were "conversation pieces". the meaning of that expression didn't quite sink in until i grew up and became involved in the day to day operations.