Ahh, Thanksgiving! The family. The food. The weight gain.
I was lucky enough to get to spend the holiday with both my kids, my son's fiancee, and my dad. Oh, and my husband. We ate. We talked. We napped. We played with cats.
The best part, the VERY BEST part, is my dad had found boxes of slides in the basement, dug out the slide projector that he bought in 1958, along with a projector screen, and we watched slides for HOURS.
Y'all, I saw pictures I had never seen in my life. OF ME.
It was bittersweet. Pictures of loved ones, either long gone or more recently departed. Places and events remembered (future post on one of THOSE). Some of the slides were badly damaged from age and from water damage (I have written before that that basement has seen more than its share of flooding, from rain water to broken pipe water to broken SEWER pipe water).
One box was of photos my dad took when he spent almost a year in Korea from June 1957 to May 1958. He remembered all the places, all the people. Oh, the stories!
For my Ten Things of Thankful this week, I'm going to post ten of the photos I am most thankful to have discovered. In all honesty, I could do this format for months and months, because each photo is such a treasure, but I will spare you.
Nah, probably not. You will see more of these in the future.
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| My daddy, South Korea, near DMZ |
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| Taken from his camp, that mountain is North Korea. The white spot is an observation area. They were watching each other.... |
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| Easter, maybe 1965. In the background is my great aunts Ecie and Daisy's car (which once belonged to my mom) |
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| My first birthday, sampling cake with my mom in the dining room at my great aunts' house. I have that cake stand. |
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| Christmas 1965, I believe. Pat-a-burp doll in new stroller. Baby Kissy on the floor next to me. Christmas apple and orange from stocking on coffee table. |
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| My grandpa on the farm outside Urich. That's a dairy barn behind him and a contraption my dad built to take feed into attic. |
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| My mama, Easter, maybe 1965. She reminds me of Jackie Kenendy. |
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| With my brother, 1964-ish, standing in the driveway of our Ruskin Heights house, in front of our Falcon station wagon. |
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| I think my brother must have still been staying with my great aunts when these newborn photos were taken. Check out my poor club feet! Took years of casts and corrective shoes to straighten those babies out. |
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| Because the "new and improved" Blogger won't let me organize the pictures, this one is more grossly out of order than the others. Field training camp, South Korea. 8" Howitzer pointed up and at the ready in middle of camp. |
Oh, Dyanne, what a memorable Thanksgiving for you and your family. This will be one you will remember forever. What a treasure. What a great introduction to the family for your son's fiancee.
ReplyDeleteMy one club foot (right foot) was corrected via a cast and then wearing a left shoe on my right foot for a while. My mother gave up her shoe ration (this was during WWII) so she could buy two pairs of shoes for me so I could wear two left shoes. One of our children had a slight club foot and it was easy to correct without having to cast.
I can definitely see the resemblance between you and your Mom.:)
Love this post!
Thank you so much, Pat! The slide show was such fun! I almost cried when I saw myself as a newborn, as I have never seen a print picture of me that small! How unselfish of your mom to give up her shoe ration for you! I had a lot of years in corrective shoes, and I HATED them. I never really thought I looked that much like my mom, but as I have gotten older, I keep seeing her looking back at me in the mirror! My daughter looks a lot like me, so I guess the genes are strong!
DeletePat.a.Burp doll.
ReplyDelete... nah... can't do anything with that that isn't as What?!!-worthy as the name.
funny thing about photos (assuming that your photos were in that odd format of picture with a normal border around the top and side but extra wide at the bottom... and triangle glue-back tabs for the scrap book)
lol
I recognized the car before I read the caption... (why would my not-really-up-to-design-specs mind feel that the model car that our family had when I was in grade school was more important to save than, say, the password to my cloud account?)
have a good week
thanks for the hostifying of this here bloghop here
These were slides only. Which is why I had never seen any of them. I don't remember my family getting out the slide projector one single time growing up!
DeleteQuite a car, huh? Graduated to a Chevrolet Bel Air station wagon after that!
And thanks!
How wonderful to be able to go through all those memories together. My Dad is cleaning out everything in his storage area as he gets ready to build an efficiency apartment and he has been sending me boxes of pictures and other memorabilia. It is so fun to go through everything.
ReplyDeleteI'm finishing up a thankful blog post myself this week and will be sure to link up to your blog hop once I get it posted. It's especially important to be grateful right now.
Weekends In Maine
It's bittersweet going through old pictures and other memorabilia, isn't it?
DeleteI'm so glad you're going to join us! Can't wait to read your post!
It is a little bittersweet especially having lost my Mom a few years ago.
DeleteYes, same for me! Seeing photos of my mom holding me were tough. She's been gone four years and I miss her every day. I'm sorry you have had to go through it, too.
DeleteSounds like you all had an awesome holiday. Slide projector?! How cool. Especially seeing pictures you'd never seen before. And what a cute pic of you on your 1st birthday :D Love it that you have the cake stand. There are some traditions that must be preserved and how one serves up the birthday cake is one of those traditions :)
ReplyDeleteSlide projector purchased in 1958! I peaked at the age of one. Why don't I make angel food cakes more often? Oh, that's right, because I can eat the whole thing in one sitting!
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