Labor Day Family Dinner and Vintage Photos
We're having a wonderful Labor Day weekend here. The rain from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac, which devastated parts of the south, finally arrived here mid-day today - just in time to turn our Labor Day cook out into a cook in. We're happy to have the rain as it has been a dry summer. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been hit so hard by this storm.
We wouldn't have had much time for a fire, even if the rain hadn't started, as we had a little project to do...converting old family photos from slides to digital. Aunt Idris had spent a good part of a day going through old carousels and sorting out ones that she thought would be good to salvage. Susie converted them over to digital images using a handy little machine. I have the easy job of uploading them to the Internet.
If you're a friend on Facebook, you can see the entire album. They are also in my Flickr stream. But, for my blog readers, I picked a few favorites to post here as well.
Most of the photos we looked at tonight were taken before I was born...and this one is no exception. Regardless, this photo still captures a lot of good memories for me. First, it contains many people I love - several of whom are no longer with us. Second, it captures my grandpa's boat, Memory Maker is I believe what he called her...how appropriate? Third, the photo was taken in Michigan on Clam River where we've enjoyed many summer family vacations. You don't have to be in a photo...or even have been born when it was taken...to feel a connection to it.
This picture is of my sister Susie and my brother Johnny. It was taken on the back porch of our old house...you can see the farm house where our grandparents lived (and where mom and dad now live) in the background. My reaction to this was..."I never saw our old house without the covered patio." This one elicited one of the funniest reactions of the evening...from my sister Susie however. In her words, "No wonder I hate yellow."
The last two I'm posting tonight are of my Grandma Monroe, along with my cousin Terry and I. We're reading books, just hanging out...typical grandma and grand kid kind of stuff. But as I sit in her old house, in the exact same corner where these photos were taken, typing this post, I can't help but feel a deep connection to the past.
I'm looking forward to spending some time editing some of these...zooming, cropping, cleaning up some blemishes on the slides. I'll likely share more later.
I hope your Labor Day weekend has been a time to connect with family, form new memories, and spend time cherishing old times.