The Slide Show

A day was spent together with aunts, uncles and cousins. Games were played, much food was eaten, and conversation abounded. The kids played upstairs in the one big open bedroom, making the lights downstairs shake. The adults played Rook or Shanghai around square card tables. Memories were always made when the Bender family gathered at the farm.

I love my cousins. :) Guess which one I am.

Evening rolled around and nobody really wanted to leave. Someone would mention looking at the old slides. Sometimes it seemed like they just couldn't be found (or was it the thought of having to go look for them amidst the sundry items in the back bedroom with a corner that was used as an attic). But, the best evenings were when the big screen would be brought out, the slide carousals with their carefully arranged squares would be set up, and the projector would be plugged in.

The living room furniture would get pushed around so the living room would become our own private "movie" theatre. Popcorn would be popped and pillows propped. The light switch would be flipped off as the projector beam illuminated the screen. In the beam, dust mites danced and the musty, dusty smell of the screen filled the air. Someone would have to put their hand up into the beam, making bunnies and dinosaurs appear as animated shadows. Then the picture show would begin.

"Awww, look how cute she was!" was the comment for any of my aunts as babies and young girls. Or for that matter, any children, even if we weren't sure who they were. I think I see Aunt Sharon on this one. The cute shy one.

I do believe that's Sharon with her awesome car in the next slide. A Ford Maverick? A Pinto? Or maybe a Chevy Vega?

(No, I don't really know cars that well. I had to ask Leo.)




"Wow! Was that Darwin?" was the comment for my dad. I am sure my dad was looking ornery as always. See the evidence below. See the handsome lad in the back row? In the middle? Yep, that's him.

Maybe the orneriness he comes by honestly. 

Maybe from my Uncle Oren, my Grandpa and Uncle Carl. 

Of course, Aunt Jane doesn't look un-ornery in this picture either. 

"Don't they look "schnook?" was the consensus for photos of young couples dating or in the early years of married life.  Especially the ones with my mom and dad. Of course. 

This one was at their baby shower.

 And then after my sister Kimberly was born. 

Schnook, so schnook. 

Cute, as it were. 

A favorite picture of my mom. 

Old cars, old furniture, funny clothes and hairstyles. My grandparents looking young and my dad and his siblings even younger. The farmhouse as is was back in the day. We loved to look at these pictures and hear the stories as memories were evoked.










Then the "newer" slides showing some of the grandkids would be shown and we liked to pick each other out and then pick on each other just a little, and always in good fun. New memories were being made from the vintage ones. I am conveniently missing from this slide. Oops. 

Soon, too soon, the last carousal was flipped through, the popcorn and homemade root beer long gone, and the moon was high in the sky. Time to gather the coats off my grandparents bed and bundle up for the three-mile ride home. Goodbyes were said and sleepy children carried to the cars.

Photos, whether in slides, old home movies, or as they are today in digital, tell a story. They capture a moment in time that might have otherwise been forgotten, or grown hazy like a dream. Today, all it took was just a hint of a smell that reminded me of that musty, dusty screen and I was a girl again, waiting for the first slide.

Love,
Dianne