The main reason the job of life scanning is so overwhelming is: each photo takes you on a “Cold Case”, so-to-speak, in the aspect of deciphering the exact time the photo was taken. Then your mind wanders and the nostalgia pours in. Stories are ignited.
A batched scan job of one of my mother’s things; a collage of memories from the 70s. I decide to keep the ones that came out and re-scan the others. So the first photo takes me to Boring Oregon. Must be late October or early November 1970 as my sister was born, as per my wishes to Jesus, and she is pretty little here, but not a drooling newborn. Where Touché Turtle is the cartoon in the background, the TV is in the spot in our little red and white cottage where my parents erected the 12 foot flocked tree with cerise ornaments described in the previous entry. I remember those big windows. My neighbors were Theresa and Tracy Dempsey and this was down a little gravel road off of Bluff Road. Indians lived a little further down the way. We didn’t hang with them. Too bad, now I would totally dig hanging with Native Americans! I have some great students who are native and friend Rene and a few others. But off on a tangent I go.
At this Boring house, we had these gigantic inner tubes that we rolled around in, on, jumped in, on, stacked and generally abused, like kids do. We called them the Giant Donuts. We played outside a lot. I learned to ride a bike here. That Christmas too, I was in the pageant at school and all I remember is playing a doll. My mom made me up. After the show Santa was there in the Cottrell Grade School gym/stage/auditorium and when it was my turn to sit on his lap I observed, that Santa’s costume was not complete, he’d forgotten his gloves and he had a bandage on his thumb in the same place my daddy cut his thumb. Boo ya, I was putting two and two together BEFORE those Santa stifling students informed me the hard Santa facts!
Alright, I gotta go for a run. That’s my nostalgic tangent for the day. Here comes Santa Clause, here comes Santa Clause right down Santa Clause Lane…
