I recently took custody of the three Rubbermaid totes of family photos, now that I have more storage space than my sister. Our mother kept every Mother's Day card and postcard we ever sent, and though nothing is in albums, she also has photos all the way back to a 1909 postcard someone sent to Svea, my Swedish great-grandmother, which was pressed up against my university grad photo 93 years later.
Things are looking messy in my condo right now, but it's all for the greater good. The cat disapproves. She likes sitting on the junk mail that's at the right of the shot, though.
My trusty Film Scanner has been working overtime. I love it!
The negatives and slides are an archeological dig into my parents' history. The slides are jumbled (but that's for another post), but the negatives are chronological. I smiled at these shots. They smack of "we're new homeowners." I have similar shots of my first home--no people or interesting angles, just "this is our first home."
My trusty Film Scanner has been working overtime. I love it!
The negatives and slides are an archeological dig into my parents' history. The slides are jumbled (but that's for another post), but the negatives are chronological. I smiled at these shots. They smack of "we're new homeowners." I have similar shots of my first home--no people or interesting angles, just "this is our first home."
They certainly did listen to the adage of "buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood." It was by no means a hovel, and the back yard was huge, but it was torn down shortly after we moved.
I lived there from 6 months to 4 years, so all my earliest memories were within the basic boundaries of these photos. Childhood memories being what they are, most are nebulous and fragmented, but when I saw these photos, they whooshed right back:
- The crawl space that was built for Lilliputians. I didn't understand it was just for storage.
- Watching Sesame Street with my sister and yelling out the number and letter each episode was "brought to you by." Apparently, that's how we woke up our parents
- Lying in my parents' bed with my Nana while she taught us about cloud animals. What do you see? Close your eyes...keep them closed....OPEN.... what do you see now?
- Getting a gift of a crocheted blanket from the same Nana
- Being terrified of a black and white Dracula movie our babysitter let us watch. I remember Dracula crashing through the huge windows and biting the lady. I wouldn't go near our picture windows for ages. I don't think that babysitter was invited back.
- Peering over the fence at our neighbour's pool fountain, which was a nude boy peeing. Right in the pool!
- Louise Sawyer's white plastic wicker-look basket on her bike with big handlebars. It had 2 colourful plastic daisies too. Can't believe her name came back to me as well
- Inheriting our dog Crockett from my mom's friends Lorna and Bob when they moved to Malawi
- The ottoman (maybe the one in the following picture) that we would flip on its side and pretend was our tv. The wheels were the knobs (the what? youngsters will ask). We even drew squiggly lines for the screen. I think I remember that because our mom got mad at us
There are a few more, but they might be influenced by seeing photos or hearing the lore in years since. Maybe some of the above are too, but I am claiming them as my own.
There's me and my smiling little face. That's my maternal grandfather partly in the frame, and possibly the ottoman from my memory, though I think this is my grandparents' house. "My" ottoman seemed more stripey and not as tall.
Thank you, Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner!
Thank you, Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner!
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