Star Beacon
March 05, 2008 06:50 pm
—
My big goal for Christmas was to take a truckload of old family slides, scan them into the computer, clean them up and put them neatly onto disc.
That was my goal. But what slowed my enthusiasm was our Closet From Hell.
I got the idea back in June when I got a new scanner. Most of the slides came from my grandfather, who religiously took photographs from the time my dad and uncle were young well through my childhood.
The slides were neatly placed in a case on a high shelf in the closet.
All summer, I looked across the walk-in closet to that shelf. It was like that elusive last, golden apple high atop the tree. It was like the Holy Grail.
But in between were boxes of old books, Christmas decorations, Halloween items, Easter stuff. I think I found the Ark of the Covenant, after it left that big warehouse in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Alas, I didn’t even gain access to the slides until right around Christmas. I was able to finish the scanning in February.
Now I had seen the slides on Grandpa’s old slide projector, shown on his old but meticulously kept screen.
But then the bulb burned out and there the slides sat unwatched for close to another two decades.
My goal was to start scanning these slides, some dating to the 1920s, into my computer, making certain they were all going the same direction, that they were color corrected and cropped.
The first 50 slides or so were of my grandparents and their relatives, with none of my dad or uncle. Grandpa always wore a tie and his shirt was always buttoned to the top, even when sitting around the house.
There were lots of pictures of Grandma dressed in red, wearing different hats.
Some were in front of the shower curtain.
Many a time Grandpa would want to take pictures of my bothers and I, we were such sweet little darlings. That meant stopping what we were doing, wetting back our hair (we all had hair then) and standing us in front of the shower curtain.
So it is funny to see Grandma, years before she was Grandma, standing in front of the shower curtain having her picture taken.
Well into the slides, we finally got some of Dad and uncle, before they were Dad and uncle.
I gained a lot of insight into my family watching the slides. Even before I was born, there were plenty of dogs around. Maybe that’s why I love them to this day.
Grandpa’s dog was photographed apparently playing checkers with Grandpa. (I think the dog was winning.)
There’s dad at maybe 14 holding the family dog. There’s uncle, even younger, holding the family dog.
Slowly, photographs of mother entered the picture. She and Dad met at college.
I scanned wedding photographs and observed the church sanctuary hasn’t changed much over the years.
But boy, my parents changed.
More scanning and suddenly the cutest little crying baby’s photograph appeared. It was me. It was followed by photographs with my mother, my cousins, my proud grandfather.
I learned my older cousin, Tim, attended my parents’ wedding. Since this was the good old days, I wasn’t born yet.
My early dog addiction is evident. There’s toddler me petting my grandparents’ dog, Topsy. There’s me seemingly driving the family car, with the help of Topsy.
Soon a brother is born and my grandparents give us, yes, our first dog, good old Suzie, a little terrier.
Through the years there are more brothers (I ended up with three) and photos were taken of us on the couch, out playing, in a tree, in our matching suits with red vests. Now that’s when we were cool, with the red vests.
Those vests would re-appear over the years as the younger of the four of us inherited the next-oldest’s vest. Baby brother Jeff could conceivably wear all of them before he outgrew the biggest one, my original. Thus the pitfalls of being the youngest.
There were photographs of our vacation in Cadillac, Mich., when I complained we had no TV and my new transistor radio couldn’t find any rock stations. It was the time one brother threw up spaghetti on another and he wouldn’t eat spaghetti for years to come. Fortunately, there are no photographs.
As the pictures continued we aged. My hair got longer. There was my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary party. It only took a few weeks of scanning for them to age so much. There was even a photo of my future wife, Louise, at the celebration.
Then Grandma got ill and had to move from the house Grandpa built 50 years before, into the Lutheran home. Slides showed her looking more frail, smiling while holding on to a series of nurses.
And one day, the slides of Grandma and Grandpa were no more.
I dabbled in slide photography when I got my 35 mm camera and my efforts were mostly pictures of son Derek at age 2. And that was it, slide show over.
Could my brothers and myself been such hellions and looked so sweet in those long-ago photographs? Also interesting was seeing again the old house I grew up in, the back yard, my neighborhood pals, our grade school class dressed up for Halloween.
Unbelievably, it will be 30 years this summer that the affects of Alzheimer’s took Grandma’s life. Grandma was so active and loved golf. She got two holes in one. She loved the Pirates. Old age can be so unfair.
Grandpa lived a few more years and met my infant son, before he told a nurse at the same nursing home, “I don’t feel well” then died the night before we were all to visit him to celebrate his 90th birthday.
Grandpa always loved to quote the funny things we said as kids and we were looking forward to him seeing Derek again, because at age 2, he already had some pretty funny things to say we knew would please his great-grandpa. But again, the unfairness of old age.
My brothers and I don’t pose in matching outfits anymore. I think all of us eat spaghetti again. When we do get together, at family celebrations, holidays or family emergencies, we never get our pictures taken together. That hasn’t happened in decades.
My next goal is to take those nearly 500 photos and create a slide show on DVD, complete with narration. I hope I get it done before another December rolls around.
This time, I don’t have to visit the Closet from Hell first.
Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
A ROBERT LEBZELTER column