Throw Back Thursday

Wow, I almost never have one of these!

(Yes, I got home fine. My lawn is not 3' tall, so apparently the kid who was mowing it got in fairly recently. The weeds overtook my back garden again but that's a problem for tomorrow or the next day. The train was late but not horrifically late. I didn't look out the window for the part where we were running alongside the Mississippi; I didn't want to see how close the water was to us because I'd only worry and not sleep).

Anyway, I decided to quickly scan and post some of the photos I had copies made of. The colors are a little wonky because they are 1970s era photos, and are scans of copies, so maybe some of the quality has been lost. But whatever. These photos are older than some of you reading this - 1976 and 1977

First up: Memorial Day parade, 1976:



This is the photo my mom took of me standing outside our house (it was 220 Atterbury) before the parade. Note the white gloves; that was a special trip to Dodds (the small department store in town - I wonder if it still exists - after I read in my Brownie handbook that flag etiquette suggested white gloves when carrying a flag).

Here I am in the parade. I'm in the leftmost foreground - I'm wearing shortish white socks and strappy brown shoes with my Brownie jumper dress:



Being able to walk in that parade is one of the more vivid, and happier, memories from that year.

Later that summer we took a very long trip (in a rented Winnebago that we shared with another family, and I marvel at that now, that there weren't more squabbles on that trip). We went to many of the National Parks in the Southwest, including the Grand Canyon:



My mom remarked when looking at that photo (she had not seen them for nearly 30 years - the album was buried in the bottom of a box that had never got fully unpacked) "We look so young there!"

Well, yes, so do I. And I guess there's photographic proof that I DID wear my hair in pigtails at one point.

And this was either Christmas that year or the next, I forget which. I kind of think it was third grade year (so: 1977) that I got the big Pink Panther:



And this is definitely 1977, because it was my brother's third birthday (another photo shows my mom reading him a card that says "You're 3!" on the front of it:




And there's the mouse shirt that I ALSO found, and carried back with me after washing it.  (And the wallpaper in the kitchen! What a memory for me).