Ned's Parents

I just finished laboriously typing out a long, long letter to Ned from his father and than it somehow disappeared before I could hit the "Publish" button!  I hate when that happens.  I'll try to post it again some other day -- I don't have time for it now.

This is a photograph of Ned's parents which he kept with his personal possessions aboard the LST-909.  It's difficult to tell from this grainy old shot, but his father is smoking a pipe.  I wonder if this is the "calabash pipe" mentioned in the letter of my first post?