Vivid Trip Down Memory Lane

My Dad - Movie Star

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a plastic bag filled with 8mm movies that I’d found in my mother’s attic when we were cleaning out her house following her death in 2002.  They were home movies shot in the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s.  I cruised the internet and found a place in Wisconsin that offered to convert the movies to DVD, Take5 Productions.  I corresponded with the owner via e-mail and she assured me the movies would be in good hands.  I vividly remember watching these movies when I was young, mostly because I was charged with manning the projector and that was incredibly frustrating because it was so balky.  The DVDs came back shortly before I left for Panama.  I decided to wait to watch the movies with my wife and sister.  When we picked up Buddy on Thursday night I invited my sister and her husband to come up on Saturday for the world premiere.  My daughter was already planning on being with us for the weekend and we invited my best friend also.  The movies were just flat fantastic and it was so much more fun watching the movies with the assembled family and friends.  I was most touched by seeing the few scenes with my father.  He was killed in 1977 by a drunk driver and had not been a big part of my life after his divorce from my mother in the late 1960s.  To see him again, jauntily walking across the screen, usually with a cigarette in his mouth brought back a lot of good memories.  I’m older now than he ever got to be and I often regret he didn’t get to meet my kids, whom he would have adored.  We also saw my mother, younger than my daughter is now, gracefully maneuvering three young children around, best clothes for Easter, and lots of hoop skirts for the girls.  I also noticed how much my own kids resembled me at the early ages of 1-3.  This was a great dose of nostalgia and brought forth so many thoughts of what might have been.  Everybody’s life is defined by the decisions they make.  I wish my parents had been able to make better decisions when I saw how happy they seemed to be in these movies.

My Sister (L) and Myself Marching Down the Street in 1958

My Dad Holding My Sister (R) and Myself (L)