I don't know if it's the new year, the new age (40...how did that happen?), the reconnecting with people from High School on Facebook or what it is but I have noticed I am feeling a bit nostalgic this week.
One of the things I have thought about is the lack of pictures. My younger girlfriends always seem to have a camera with them. I am pretty sure my niece has never done anything that wasn't documented by a photo op. Every gathering, every party, lunch, drinks anything there is a camera, or at least a camera phone. So then I started thinking what would I like to have pictures of?
When to start? What do you wish you had pictures of? What sums up elementary school? Lemonade stands...walking to the 7-11 and buying candy then coming back and selling it at a healthy mark-up to the kids in the apartment complex who weren't allowed to walk to the 7-11 by themselves...pictures of Marsha and her dogs Angel and Fluffy...my next door neighbor who was a little wiser to the world than I was. Shaun Cassidy records on her own record player in her own room...she was an only child and that was a luxury I couldn't imagine! We were allowed to call her parents by their first names Mel and Sharon..very 70s couple. Devon...my best friend in first grade. She was the best. Hippy chick mom who would let us wear her bandannas tying our hair back (or Devon's at least, mine was too short to hold back!) and made us sandwiches with mayo on them...what an exotic treat to a Miracle Whip kid... then moving to a new elementary school...new adventures...Lily and I camping out in her back yard. Can you even imagine parents letting kids do that now? Getting in a fight with a girl who's name I don't remember over a boy I can't picture anymore...my mother hauling us to the Principal's office...I would love a shot of that one. Gilbert filled me in the next day on how it all went...I was blindsided and never saw her coming...but was firmly gaining the upper hand when this crazy woman came charging across the playground and picked us both up by our collars and hauled us in...yep..dear mom...
Fifth grade...first day at Parkview...so mad I could spit at having to be there when ALL of my friends were going to RULE at Whittier...I can just imagine how that picture would look. My poor brother Jeff was the one who had to escort me to my first day, at Parkview the first day of school was chapel and then meeting the teachers and I wanted NOTHING to do with any of it. But do it I did. I was sure I would never have any friends...but Evie, Tanya, Kerry, Donnie, Debbie, Shelly, Shawna, Theresa, Paul, Larry and so many others soon came. Somewhere there are a few pictures of this group...wish I knew where they were...Roller Skating during Christmas break and feeling like we were getting away with something being away from school and hanging out. Mr. Rex's PE class or reading in eighth grade...we were supposed to be discussing Red Badge of Courage but Donnie's dad had let him see Porkey's so we were talking about that instead...I would love to have a picture of our faces as Donnie described the movie to a bunch of highly sheltered 12-13 year olds!
Summer camp...now I know there are pictures of that somewhere...there was always at least one kid with a camera, and they were going to send you copies of the pictures...but then time passes and you don't keep in touch... The pond, Bear Cave, we really did sit around the campfire and sing kum by ya...and let me tell you when people use it as an insult I have to smile because there is nothing like the smell of a campfire and the bright stars in dark woods with pure high voices singing together... Susan and Matt as cooks...years later Amy and I doing the same thing. The year that Amy and I doctored the coffee with chocolate powder and cinnamon...who knew we were inventing coffee people would pay $5 a cup for years later? :-) Ricky in the red El Porvenier shirt that photographed pink...see? I KNOW there is a shot of that somewhere!
Youth group...I had pictures of that time but I gave them all to Reagan to remember us by...little did I know a few years later he would marry Amy and have his own permanent reminder of the group of kids he had to salvage from the edge of a breakdown...
High School...wow...first day of school I was TERRIFIED...that would have been a great shot. Chrystal and I probably dressed alike, we did that sort of thing back then. Freshman year...what would I love a shot of? Falling upstairs at Jane's house...sneaking out the window...walking all over Four Hills...fighting with George in front of Senor Tafoya's class...the first time I met Brent (having no idea in 5 years I would be married to him)..walking to Dions for lunch and feeling like a real bad-ass for being off campus. Alex and Jaden in full cheer gear and realizing that I was friends with cheerleaders..who would have ever thought that would happen?...oh wait...even better...Jaden dressed in red and black because she LOVED Loverboy! What else would I like a shot of from HHS? Gosh...everyone covered in Pretty Women Pink because someone forgot to put the filter on the paint sprayer...a shot of Chip walking across the stage in Cami's black pumps and realizing he had better legs than any of us girls! Ralph running over one of the Cooley's with the golf cart during Grease...Stephanie (I don't even know her last name) and I sitting outside talking for hours about when she knew she was a lesbian, best response to that question was her asking me when I knew I was straight, my answer being I just always have been...a ha! I get it...thank you Stephanie where ever you are...sitting in Carrow's with the group from the Entertainers (Jim, Pete, Tim, Nikki, Andy, Eric and of course Brent) thanks to all of you for letting a theater kid infiltrate your ranks...how long can you nurse and iced tea and order of fried zuchinni? Or a chicken ranch sandwich? And Devon from elementary school? She was Nikki's best friend in elementary school after I moved away. Small world... Sitting on the stage or behind stage or in the parking lot of the theater discussing the meaning of life with Cinnamon and Ralph. I think we solved every world problem at one time or another. Learning how to play chess at lunch time with the chess team in the science buidling and realizing that smart people challeneged the way you look at the world. Pictures of some of the parties...hmmm maybe not... Dressing up to go Club Rio...then The Big Apple...or was it other way around? Big Apple first then Club Rio?
Wedding pictures, now I have those! But I wish I had a shot of Brent and I sitting on the bed in the Marriot eating room service pizza cause we were starving!
The crew I worked with at Schlotzsky's. The time we pranked Jim and Pete before Brent went into the Navy. Ah the Navy...there are a few pictures from that time as well...my 19th birthday there was a camera, though we didn't get a picture of the guy that thought I was turning 30! And who was that guy that always showed up at our apartment at dinner time? Names and faces lost...Sam from New York...Marla deeply in lust with him making the mistake of introducing him to her cousin Samantha and a month later Sam and Sam RAN to city hall to tie the knot...I wonder if they are still together...Phil Tracy and his wives...not all at once, but one after the other...drinking White Russians at his and Miriam's place. It was like a shake...with a kick...much like the first time Jane introduced me to the joys of Kalua and cream...it's like chocolate milk with a kick! I am fond of the kick...Amie, Tamara, Marla, Sam, Skip, McFall...ummm the other guy and the other guy...where are they all now?
Idaho Falls and Rhett and Amber...the New Year's Eve party at their big drafty house. Amber and I cleaned for days to get it ready. I wore a black tube dress and long white jacket and crimped my hair with the wave not the hard edge crimper...if you can't dress like that at 21 when can you? That was the night the only wiccan in Idaho Falls cornered me in the kitchen to ask me to join her coven...maybe the hair was a bit too wild. :-) The Fourth of July parade, walking Redd (our ferret) there on a leash. Or trying to, giving up and just carrying her. I would even like a shot of all of us at the Chinese restaurant (before the waitress dumped the pitcher of beer on me...)
San Diego...so much stuff...Trips to TJ...afternoons sprawled out on couches in Clairmont too tired and hot to even finish the boggle game we had all started...trips to Gator Gardens, drinking on base was legal if you were enlisted, or a pretty girl which we all covered one way or another. Dancing at Moose's, boogie boarding at any and every beach we could. Sam towing me out farther that I could swim on my own to ask me what it was really like being married to a Navy man. Debbie (was that her name?) really wanted to get married and he wasn't sure if it was fair...we talked out there bobbing up and down in the waves for 20 minutes before a swell brought us back in. I don't know if they ever got married or not. Again, solving the world's problems talking deep into the night but this time with Chad, Erika, Susan and a cast of characters from Chad's squadron. Waiting for Brent to come back from being out to sea. There are pictures of the bedlam in his cruise books, but none that captured that first sighting...the smile that would break your face as YOUR person came back to you after 6 months away. I still can't watch homecomings on TV without crying...it was that emotional. That big of a deal. He was so freaking handsome in his dress blues, or whites depending on the cruise...me dressed to the nines...my feet killing me from too high of heels on too hard of cement...but not caring because he was HOME. Jeff and Melissa and their kids Bailey and Mikey...we could have taken a whole album of shots of Jeff sitting alone at a dinner table because we had all finished dinner while he ate soooo sloooowly.... little Bailey and Mikey...now they are all grown up and Bailey has a baby of her own and Mikey dropped the y and is in college...
Then came Christopher. And the pictures started. Mostly of just him. Sometimes me, sometimes Brent but mostly Christopher. First steps, first words, first trumpet concert, first play...all of it that we remembered the camera for we captured. But we missed a lot as well. And I wonder when he turns 40 if he will look back and wonder where the shots are that he really wishes he had...
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