Photo Finds

Found some photographs this week when fussing.  Amazing what you will find with you take the time to look.  These are photographs of my parents Tony and Tressie.  They were pretty awful images (photography wise) but I scanned them in and edited them a bit.  I think they came out quite nice.

My father died in 1989, I was 27 but really too immature  to understand adulthood.  I know that is really odd to say as I was a mother myself of an 18 month old son.  But I didn't think of my parents as "people" like myself, with hopes and dreams, embarrassments and the possibility that they might not be around for the rest of my life.  My parents were not the affectionate type at all. I'm pretty shocked to see this image of them hugging in one image.  So glad I've found this image.

I and my two siblings look nothing like my father.  (always wondered ;-)) we are  pretty much clones of our mother.  Blue eyes, crooked smile and everything.  But I did get a lot from my dad.  He loved to read and read.  He collected encyclopedias (I still have them all) which might be one reason I'm so fascinated with Wikipedia.  The idea of having all knowledge in your home was a very tempting one.  In the 1970's when I was growing up this seemed to be a popular trend, that the encyclopedia sales people took advantage of.

My dad had an odd hobby when it came to the encyclopedias.  He would color in the photos on the margins of the books.  So now of course I have all these sets of bulky books I can't bare to part with.  Thanks dad!  Couldn't you collect something smaller?

Here he is playing the guitar.  Damn he played all the time.  He wasn't good, played the same tunes over and over again.  I wish we had thought to have made some recordings of him playing.  Maybe stored somewhere we have a cassette with some of his music.

Next to him you can see our poor piano.  I took lessons for years (always beginning over as a new student) I never managed to pick it up.  I, like my dad used to hammer out the same tunes over and over.  Another thing we have in common (didn't think to record myself either) Gave away that piano when I moved my mom out of the house.  I could not keep both the piano and the encyclopedias.  

Here is a grainy photo of my dad wearing his nerdy glasses and one of several flannels.  I have several of these still and have been known to wear them.

My mom wore this outfit all the time.  Polyester bright red pants.  Wow!  At the time this was very fashionable and practical.  No ironing and it held its color wash after wash.  As I said, it is very odd to see them so affectionate.  

Here is my mom pretending to talk on the phone.  She started selling Avon when I was a teen, (my father didn't want her to work) and she excelled at it.  She was a very good saleswoman (I followed in her footsteps) and she kept very organized and had a large group of customers.  She was always winning things (like this phone which we all hated to use) from Avon.  My garage rafters are packed with free glasswear, engraved "President Club Winner" silver trays, ugly milk glass dishware, and microwave safe cooking dishes.
Every so often I attempt to sell off some of it on Ebay or a garage sale.  We tried to sell it when she was still alive, but my mother would not sell the items for low prices.  She said "I paid $5 for that, I'm not letting it go for under $4.25" in other words we have a ton of this stuff.  I'm just slowly trying to use it in my own home.

Doubt that phone is going to get much use.  I still hate it.