Tupperware

 I remember the Tupperware parties that Mom used to have in the 1970s and early 1980s. I saw some of these items in family photos. The only item that we still have is the mixing bowl.

Internet photos- 

We do still have one of the mugs- yellow. 

Our Swing set 1975

 

Commercials/Advertising

 

The Farm

 My maternal grandmother moved to live with her 2 brothers Harold and Louis at the farm in mid-1970, I think. I am pretty sure that it was in Titusvillle NJ. She turned her apartment over to my parents. We don't have that many photos of the farm. The first 3 are from the 1970s. I found the older ones in Mom's album recently. 

They land owners told them that they had to leave the property and only gave them about 6 or 8 weeks to do so. I had thought that this was in 1981 or 1982 but it had been either 1979 or 1980, according to my grandmother's obituary article that said she was a Bordentown resident for 7 years.

We only went to the farm for Thanksgiving each year. I remember sitting at the kiddie table for dinner, playing with toys such as the Pillsbury Dough Boy that were in a toy box that grandma got out of a sliding door closet, and watching cartoons like Space Ghost and Blue Falcon and Dynomutt while sitting under the dining room table.

There was a pool table in one room and a swing hanging from the tree close to the house. I wish that we had more and better photos of the farm. For me, it seemed like a wonderful, peaceful place which I always enjoyed going to. I

I discovered that Mom had am 8mm reel of film with footage of the farm. It is mostly of her father digging a hole and cutting some bushes. There is a brief scene of  the house. I should try pausing this and getting a photo of it. I don't know if it will come out good though.

Snowmen made by grandma. Mark and I each have one.

December 26, 1960

Mom 

Mom and boyfriend, Billy

Billy

Grandpa in the background

Uncle Tommy and Aunt Edie. It is the only photo that we have of them. I wish that we had a better one. These photos are small, I wonder what type of camera was used.

Uncle Harold- possibly 1952. The photo had been taped or glued in an album so there is black paper covering parts of the back. It seems like this was the date. 

My maternal great grandmother, Lucy Ramsin. 

Mom

I am pretty sure that the above 2 photos are at the farm. I am not certain of the dates, however.

Grandpa, Grandma, and Mom

I have posted this photo before. I hadn't realized at first that this was also taken at the farm. They are seated in the area where the kiddie table was set up at Thanksgiving.

O Christmas Tree- 1969 and 1970s

 I thought that we had more photos of just the tree from the 1970s but it turns out that we didn't. We started getting a live tree in 1978 which is earlier than I remembered. I had thought that it was 1979. We don't really have any good photos of the tree from 1970-1973. We don't have any Christmas photos from 1975 which is disappointing.

1969- Uncle Mike

1969- Me under the tree

1974

The tree looks different in the first photo than in the other 2- like there is tinsel as well as garland on it. I know for sure that it is the right year; maybe we took the tinsel off. It would be kind of unusual to have both things on a tree, right?

1976

Decorating the tree

Christmas morning

1977

I didn't have any photos from this year until I came across some Polaroids in a box of Dad's photos

1978

Grandma, Mark, and me. I wish that this photo hadn't been cut.

1979

My Family's Slides

 I bought a viewer to look at our family slides. We have a small one but it is broken and unable to be repaired. It has been interesting seeing these; there are many from 1968, including my parents wedding. I have been gradually taking batches of them to a photo shop to have made into pictures. It is kind of expensive but worth it. 

Some are not that great so I wouldn't spend money to have them done. We already have many of them from our parents wedding. I was trying to just pick out a minimal amount of each event at first but now I want to have more done. I have about 60 of them already.

These are a few of my maternal grandfather. He died a couple of years before I was born. 

I was taking photos of slides when they were in the viewer hoping that these would turn out good enough to have some of the photos that weren't on the top priority list printed out cheaply at Walgreens but this wasn't that successful. You can't really use the flash. The edges seem dark. I did try adjusting the brightness on them with Windows Photo but still wasn't satisfied. I am sure that if I had Adobe Photoshop or other program, it might do a better job. I don't really want to spend money on that. I would rather invest in getting more of them done professionally.

Here are the same photos as above- the slide viewer versions. Yikes- they are worse than I remembered

My parents didn't really do that many slides of my brother and me. There are only 15 or 16 from 1971. Those are the very first ones that I had made into photos. I also had them scanned onto a flash drive, something that I should have done with the next 2 orders. It is easier and comes out much better than scanning them myself like I have done with a lot of my photos so far. There are many more yet to be done which I haven't been in the mood for. It is discouraging that they aren't always aligned perfectly even though I have tried my best to get them that way.

Here is what the viewer looks like-

 

Mom's Viewer-

A box full of slides-