1966 Cross Country Road Trip- Mom and her parents

 Mom had the photo album of this trip in a storage tote for a very long time. I don't remember ever looking at it before the past few years I only had glanced through it a couple of times then.

Recently, I looked at it more closely and decided to scan the photos. They are printed on thick type paper and are in the pages pretty tight so they were hard to get out. It was easier just scanning each page. I did take a few of them out to do so though.

I haven't really talked to Mom about this vacation that much. She did mention the Pikes Peak, Colorado portion of it. There aren't any photos of that, just some footage on home movies which I saw for the first time a couple of months ago. I finally had her 8 mm film reels put onto DVD. She seemed pleased to see these.

I hadn't even realized that they visited her sister out in California as part of this until recently. Maybe Mom did mention it before but I just forgot.

I still have a lot more photos to crop and straighten as best as I can. I completed a handful yesterday. Here are the ones of Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Oklahoma

Grandpa- on left, with a local guy

3 locals and their doggie

New Mexico

Mom- 1940s-1950s- Part 1

With Grandma

with Grandma

with Grandma and Aunt Al

Mom doesn't really have that many photos from her childhood. The condition of some of them is not that good too, but I am just grateful that she still has them.

 

Grandma and Her Daughters

 This photo of grandma with her 3 daughters- my Aunts Jo and Alice and my mother, Ruth Ann, (left to right) is from the mid-1980s

Here is one of the sisters as kids- Aunt Jo, Mom, and Alice

I only saw Aunt Jo 3 or 4 times- once when we went to Florida in 1983. Here are a few photos of her family. The first one might be from the late 1950s

Aunt Jo and Uncle Rich

Grandma, Aunt Jo and the kids

Aunt Alice and her family-1960s, before Mary who was born in 1972.

Aunt Al and Uncle Gene

Christmas time-

Aunt Jo and Mom

Mom with Grandma and Prince- 1968

Aunt Al and Mom

Grandma and Grandpa

 We don't have that many photos of my mother's parents together. This is my favorite one-

I love these photos of Grandpa with their poodles- Shu Shu and Prince. Mom said that her Dad wasn't crazy about her getting these doggies at first but then he became very attached to them; they were more like his doggies than hers.

I am not sure when any of these photos including the one of Mom with her parents were taken. I don't even know if Mom would remember because of her memory problems which makes me wish that I had talked about her family history with her years ago. She probably told me some stories over the years but I can only recall a little of the details. I should have kept a journal of them all along.

I really didn't do that great of a job scanning some of my photos- I plan on redoing them eventually. I have been working on organizing family photos for a while now, along with other projects such as the slides and 8mm movie reels put onto DVDs. It has been fun taking this trip into the past.

Autumn Leaves- 1971

I recently had photos made out of  these and other slides of my brother and me from 1971. There were only about 14 of them. All of our other slides are from before my lifetime- many are from 1968. I guess that by 1971, my parents weren't as interested in doing slides. 

It has been fun looking at them on the viewer. I still have about 90 more to do. I wish that I could afford to have many more made into photos but this is expensive so I could only pick out a limited number.

 

Souvenirs and Photos

I still have my souvenir patches from my trips. They are in my travel scrapbook. I originally was going to ask mom to sew them onto cloth to make a wall hanging out of them.

   We used to collect pennants during our vacations and put them on the paneled cabinet doors and elsewhere in the basement; at one point they were hanging in the small sky blue room.

   I remember that my cousin Missy used to collect spoons from her trips. Her father made her a nice holder for them in his woodshop. I can’t remember the souvenir that my brother would usually get though- maybe key chains.

   My brother foolishly threw out most of his family photos. Mom would always let Mike and I pick out the best shots for our albums. Dad stole many of our negatives, mostly those of pre 1976 but also others like my Switzerland trip and 8^th grade dance.

   I did ask for them back in the mid-90s a couple of times but he made excuses like I’ll get around to looking for them soon. He also has the home movies of our 1976 Disney trip and my 110 Kodak camera.

   I was able to get copies of some of the pictures when I was doing that big picture project back then. I really should have gotten the pre 1984 ones done in matte finish though so that they would look more like the originals. I was always worrying that some of my negatives would get lost during this which thank goodness never happened. I put these in the fireproof safe in the basement.

   I wonder if my brother ever regrets trashing those photos; he might’ve mentioned that he does once. Mom was pretty upset about this too.

   I also wonder if Dad still has that Polaroid camera that he got in the late 70s. I always liked those commercials for it with James Garner and Mariette Hartley. We watched him in “The Rockford Files” sometimes. I liked his car, a Firebird, in that. I had a little crush on him too.

      James Garner           

                                                    
                               2 Internet photos-

 

Scrapbook Stuff 2

These past 2 days I have been going through my scrapbooks and getting rid of things in them and it's not because my brother says that I have way too much stuff. I just don't feel the need to keep some of it anymore. I will not toss out any of the 8x10 or 4x6 photos like the b&w one of Jon Bon Jovi in this post. I used to cut out articles from the newspapers and magazines like the TV Guide, People and Entertainment Weekly. I also would spend lots of money on ink for the printer and print out photos of the stars that I like. I did alot of Duran Duran photos that way. Well, as of last night a majority of the DD stuff is in the recycle bag. I am not sure if I will be doing the same to my Bon Jovi scrapbook yet or not. Will I be regretting this purging of possesions like I have in the past? I hope not, but I don't think that I will this time. I am no longer that into any of these stars and shows. I have so many scrapbooks. Today I did the Buffy the Vampire Slayer one. I can't believe how much I was into that show. I even named my dog after the main character with the middle name of another one - Willow. I will not be tossing out any of the items from my doggies and other animals scrapbooks - they are too cute to part with. Animals have much more significance to me than famous people anyhow.

Pictures

I've never really been that good at taking photographs. I also used to not take that many of them, something that I really regret especially during vacations to Spain, Germany and Switzerland. I don't know why I didn't take more - maybe I was afraid I'd appear too touristy, which is ridiculous. It's not like I'm ever going to be able to afford to go to those places again. I was lucky enough to have such oppurtunities when I was in my late teens and early 20s.

I love looking in my family albums. It's kind of funny seeing the different fashions and hairstyles throughout the years. Mom would let my brother and I pick out which pictures that we wanted for our albums. We usually wound up with the best shots. My brother did something very foolish in the late 80s or early 90s- he threw away most of his pictures. We were so mad that he didn't give them to us. You can't replace these. Well, I was able to get copies of some but we didn't have all the negatives. My father has them and he won't lend them to us. This pisses me off. He has negatives from my Switzerland trip. This is so unfair.

I didn't get a digital camera until December 13, 2008. I wasn't really that interested in one. I liked my 35mm camera. It's kind of embarrasing that the main reason that I got this was because I was going to a Duran Duran concert the next day and part of me wanted to take pictures of this event. I knew that I'd be close to the stage because it was general admission and I planned on getting there a few hours early. I am mad at myself for going overboard with the snapshots and for not realizing that the battery would die out quickly. A girl told me that she always brings a spare battery with her. Very smart.

I have taken lots of pictures of my cocker spaniel Buffy with this camera. I hadn't taken any pictures since Christmas of 2004 and regret not doing so. I didn't take that many puppy pictures of her which was stupid. She was the cutest puppy. I wish that I had taken alot of pictures of Ginger. We had her from 1979-1986. I only have like 14 of her.

We had a Polaroid camera too. Dad still has one that he got in the 90s. I liked the old Polaroid commercials with James Garner and Mariette Hartley. Kodak came out with an Instamatic that we had but we had to turn them in eventually. I forget exactly what the deal was with that. We got checks or credit for them. My dad took my Kodak 110 camera too. I wish that mom had hidden this and our negatives during the divorce so he wouldn't have found and taken them.

It took me a while to figure out how to get copies of photos from the Walgreens site but I finally did so a few months ago. I had alot of US Open photos. I went overboard there too- mostly at the 2 Tommy Haas matches. I tried scanning my old family photos into the computer so I could get copies of these either through Walgreens or trying to print them out myself but they are too small. I don't understand why they are like this and don't think there is a way to make them bigger. I'm not that good with computers. I guess that I will just have to make copies of them on the printer. Our printer is kind of screwy so I have to be careful because I don't want to waste the expensive special photo paper.