Old Photos Lucette & Tom Keene - Dive Shop in The Wiers
 

Thanks to some wonderful folks on this site I was reunited with my family in France. You can read about that in this thread.

In the process I dug up a bunch of old photos to share with my family in France. These go back to the 1950s. Between 1959 and 1981 a few thousand people took scuba diving lessons from Tom Keene and visited the dive shop "Lakes Region Divers Supply." If you were one of those people, you'll want to see this page. We all have a lot of wonderful memories from the lake. Enjoy: http://www.sql-server-vb-asp.net/kee...ving/index.htm

Best,

Lance Keene (son of Tom and Lucette)

What a surprise to see Lloyd Bridges at Lake W
 

That was a fantastic set of photos. TYVM.:D

That was a lovely memorial. Good luck with fatherhood.

They certainly were, and this has become a remarkable thread. :)

Thanks also to mikemo for the "networking" effort. :look:

In one of those photos, Lloyd Bridges is trying out a panoramic dive mask, just like one I had in about those same years. It was a bit spooky to use underwater, as the corners distorted "stationary" things into "moving" things: :eek: Sometimes it's more comforting to have tunnel vision underwater with the conventional "flat-screen" diving mask! ;)

Back then, the closest place to fill my SCUBA tank was "in the Laconia area". Those photos of the shop have jogged my memory, so now I think it was filled there 1962 through 1964. Back then, a pressure-test date of 1947 didn't appear to faze the refillers!

Ten years later, a neighbor who met Lloyd Bridges in Miami said, "He looks like a small dried-up frog". :eek: I think he looks just fine: his TV show did make him appear larger-than-life, however.

The late Lloyd Bridges would have been about 50 in those photos, btw.

Amazing story
 

What an incredible tribute to your parents and your family....very touching, and the photo album was special, indeed. Thank you for sharing what was a perfect "ending" to the forever evolving story. I rather suspect your baby will be fitted for fins at a tender age! P.S. My brother was a bar-tender at Kona in the 1960s and had the pleasure of serving Lloyd Bridges his beverage of choice.

Wonderfull stuff Lance.Thanks for sharing your family's story with us.Glad you found the info you were looking for.I think we finally have some Winni historical photos that McDude didn't have!

Thanks for sharing
 

Thanks Lance, what a terrific bunch of pics. I found this one particularly interesting - some sort of (people powered?) mini-submarine...

http://www.sql-server-vb-asp.net/kee...TomKeene09.htm

More thanks from a Tom Keene fan
 

Iwas hoping to see myself in your wonderful collection of your old family photos. No luck ! What an amazing trip down memory lane. I can't thank you enough!

mini-submarine
 

This was an interesting contraption that my father had for many years. I'm not sure of its origin but we kids always had a lot of fun playing in it (on dry land).

It actually wasn't people powered. It was designed to be towed behind a boat. You could cover a lot of ground underwater in a short time. The front seat passenger was the driver. He could maneuver the front fins and move the sub up/down/left/right. There was also a quick release chord that would drop the tow line.

I only ever remember the thing being used a few times. It was a bit dangerous. It was too hard to get out of in an emergency.

Mini-sub
 

A friend of mine brought one of these up to our camp one summer in the 60s. It was orange and made out of fiberglas. As I recall it was very hard to control. We may have been going too fast though. Once on a quick maneuver the slipstream knocked my mask off. Fortunately for me, losing your mask unexpectedly had been part of my dive training. We were searching for an old barge that was supposed to be just off of the Cascades in Alton Bay. Has anyone ever found it?