On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This morning we have a set of great Christmas pics from cope! (Thought I had better belatedly clarify since apparently “cope” doesn’t necessarily jump out as a nym!)
My stepdad took lots and lots of pictures when we were growing up. He only took slides, though, so after a single viewing, they pretty much disappeared into a closet. Over the past couple of years, I took it upon myself to scan all his slides and turn them into digital slideshows complete with opening and closing credits and accompanying songs of the period. Some of the slides were, after more than fifty years, in sad shape and my scanning and editing software could only do so much but there you go.
This is my cohort, my brothers and sisters in arms. I am the oldest. As I keep blathering about, my wife and I are moving back to Colorado after thirty three years in Florida. The five of us will all be living within fifteen minutes of each other. That small rocking chair is already packed up, ready to go.
Christmas dinner, ready to be attacked by five hungry kids, parents, grandparents and anybody lucky enough to be visiting.
My two brothers sporting the most fashionable in cowboy gear. My older brother is brandishing a Mattel Shootin’ Shell Pistol. These toy guns actually shot a small projectile our of a spring-loaded casing and were highly accurate to a distance of up to a foot. No eyes were shot out.
The end of the long day. With my mom’s spittoon lamp on the table behind them, my banjo and my sister’s guitar on the mantle and the Audubon prints on the wall, the two youngest try to stay awake and make the magic day last forever.
I’m not sure why but this particular Christmas, we put the tree up in a different room. The rather sad stuffed dog had been my mother’s when she was little and it had a spot under the tree every year when we were growing up. One of my sisters has it.
For several years when we were kids, one of our Christmas Eve traditions was a visit from this guy. He worked in the local family-owned grocery/hardware shop where my parents shopped. He would come over every Christmas Eve to direct our efforts decorating the tree, drink eggnog and schmooze with my folks. “Let’s get organized” was his trademark phrase. When I tried to track him down recently, I learned that he had run afoul of the law in his business dealings (buying, selling, authenticating and appraising antiques) and apparently spent some time in a federal slammer. Some time after release, sadly, he died.
eclare
How wonderful that you will soon live so close to your siblings.
Y’all sure did have some big trees!
Rusty
Tinsel!! Does anyone even put that on trees anymore? Wonderful memories, thank you for sharing.
HumboldtBlue
We just got fuciking rocked by a 6.3 quake that in my apartment built on piers felt like a motherfucking 10.0. 12 15 seconds of massive fucking shaking
HumboldtBlue
No power obviously, unsure about building damage. Lucky, only paperbacks came off a shallow shelf, cupboards all banged open but contents stayed inside. Njce cat claw gash on outside of left hand after grabbing Salad who is now outside having said fuck you to an apartment that felt like a ship at sea
mrmoshpotato
@HumboldtBlue: I was typing out asking if you’re ok before this message. I assume aftershocks are happening.
Wanderer
@HumboldtBlue: That must be a terrifying feeling. The most constant feature in our day to day lives is terra firma. I hope you and your family and everything else is ok.
HumboldtBlue
All ok, checking with friends and neighbors, everyone is rattled, there is no more pwerless feeling than a quake. Surprisednthe walls didn’t come down, sure as fuck felt like it was imminent. Thats number 5 quake I’ve endured over 6.3
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: That must have been terrifying! Fifteen seconds is a long time.
BRyan
@Rusty: Tinsel! Not the good lead stuff from long ago, but still can be found occasionally. Augmented this year by my donation of two unopened boxes — from the ‘70s, at least — to a local drop-off site. Thinning out possessions and collections preparatory to moving after almost 50 years is hard!!
HeartlandLiberal
Somewhere in the storage closet that adjoins our master bath is my wife’s childhood rocking chair. She is turning 77 this Saturday.
Watergirl, I have a couple pictures of me as 1 or 1 1/2 year old infant, in diapers, surrounded by my mom’s parents, my Aunt, and my parents, under the pear tree at my grandparent’s home, me chowing down on watermelon. When cleaning out my mom’s home after her death, we took a stack of books. Going through them, those two pics fell out. She had kept kept them in that book.
Do those count in this series??
raven
It looks like my ex’s house in Barrington. God I’d be miserable up there for a damn week. Her dad was the pastor of the Barrington Community Church and was great guy. Her mother, on the other hand, was bat shit crazy and drove me to drink the whole time we were there. One time we went to Blockbuster and her mom picked “Stand By Me” and it is replete with nasty language. It was really uncomfortable watching it with the rev and his wife and I’ve never been happier that I didn’t pick a movie!
Not a xmas pic but I often had a gun in pictures. I had a Fanner 50 but, obviously , this is a rifle.
eclare
@raven: Are you playing hide and seek? Cute photo!
Wanderer
@HumboldtBlue: I can’t imagine. Stay safe.
raven
@eclare: I think it may have been around Halloween in 1954 or so. My sweet cousin is hugging the tree. They lived in the “country” near West Chicago.
Tim in SF
I’ve sent old slides to ScanCafe. They do a good job on old media. Their equipment is better than anything you or I could buy. I usually wait for a sale and then send a bunch of stuff in.
Wanderer
Lovely nostalgic photos. Thanks for sharing them.
eclare
@raven: I thought she might be trying to hide behind it!
HumboldtBlue
Northridge struck at 430 am, this fucker, only 12 miles out to sea struck at 230am. Mother nature doesn’t give afuck about us.
On another note, tinsel is a staple on our family Xmas trees
raven
@eclare: She was probably trying to get away from me!
raven
@HumboldtBlue: CNN put up a small piece.
Origuy
@HumboldtBlue: Glad you’re ok. The MyShake app woke me up down here in San Jose. I waited to see if I would feel anything but no. Now I can’t get back to sleep.
HumboldtBlue
@Origuy:
The shake alert apps are essentially useless, mine went off after first rumble felt, there is no true warning, and this one was close too, on the slip fault. The fucking freight train roar and the massive noise of the shaking one can never get used to. I have to say, I got off lightly unless damage to my apartment comes to light in the coming days.
And yeah, sleep has escaped for a few hours.
JPL
Cope, X-mas is going to be wonderful with your family close by. Maybe you’ll treat us to more pictures.
@HumboldtBlue: I read about the quake on Mastadon. Maybe not as many details as twitter, but it is a sign that the site is growing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Water Girl:
Where ya moving back to? Sounds like a meetup is in order. I’ll host! Assuming it’s metro Denver.
Mister Gizmo
I’m doing something similar — both parents took a lot of photos. I’m also writing vignettes of my life (not a full bio) to go with many of the photos, to pass down to family members. Inspired by things I wish I’d asked my parents or recorded myself in the few discussions we did have about their past. “You *can* take it with you” when you’re talking about fleeting memories that aren’t written down. And that’s not a good thing.
BellyCat
Great nostalgia…. with an unexpected twist in the final paragraphs! Who knew that Santa was a future felon from the hardware store?
Barbara
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I was a little confused at first, but I think the post is from cope. WG put it up.
rikyrah
The pictures are🤗🤗🤗
ColoradoGuy
@cope:
Welcome to high and dry Colorado,
WaterGirl! Thursday night’s gonna be -18F or something, stay warm!raven
@ColoradoGuy: This is Cope nor Water Girl.
Betty Cracker
Cope, how wonderful that you’ll be near your siblings again (assuming that you all get along)!
@HumboldtBlue: How scary! I’ve never experienced an earthquake and hope I never will. Stay safe.
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue: Oh no! Stay safe. What a frightening experience.
USGS lists it as 6.4 with more than a dozen aftershocks so far.
Leslie
I would love to have all my sibs within fifteen minutes of me. Thanks for the photos!
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Cope is moving, not me.
JMG
My two younger brothers fought continuously throughout my childhood, adolescence and even early adulthood. I was like the Mills Lane of my family, always trying to end arguments and smooth over mutual bad behaviors. Ugh. Now they live in the same gated golf community in Florida a half-mile apart and socialize regularly. Go figure.
My father took home movies, not photos. Every Christmas we’d come down the stairs to bathe in the blinding light of ’50s movie lights. One of my major memories is of not seeing much until after breakfast.
WaterGirl
Love the little dog that goes under the tree every year.
Not to mention the last photo with the family friend. And the table on the side that shows the other side of holidays – the mess you see at the end of the festivities.
cope
@HumboldtBlue: Saw this first thing when I rolled out of bed this morning. I hope thing settle down for you and damage and power loss are minimal. I’m sure we’ll be reading how “lucky” it was that it happened in the middle the night and not during rush hour.
Anyway
Love the picture of the siblings all lined up in height order…
Hope everyone’s ok around the quake area
cope
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: As pointed out by others, I’m the one who posted and is moving. We’ll be on the western slope in Grand Junction.
cope
@Betty Cracker: Amazingly, we all get along very well though like JMG, my two younger brothers were pretty scrappy with one another until they aged out.
Even better, my wife loves all of them as well and is looking forward to having my sisters to play with. The biggest unknown is our Quarantine Dog, Jesse, who was adopted from St. Croix to here in Florida and doesn’t seem to like the cold.
NotMax
That’s an industrial size bottle of hooch there.
:·D
Scout211
@cope: Good luck on your move. Give yourselves at least a year to recuperate and get things finally settled after the big move. That kind of change takes a lot of time and many adjustments.
I would love to live near my two sisters. I envy you.
stinger
This will be the best time of your life.
Kristine
Lovely photos–great recovery job! I second all the comments about living so close to the rest of your sibs. Also very cool that you all get along.
We’re under Winter Storm Watch here in NE Illinois. Snow and honking winds Thursday into Friday, followed by bitter cold and more honking winds with wind chills in the 20-30 below range. The snow totals keep drifting down–they started at over a foot and are now down to the 6-9 inch range. I will need to get the snow thrower in Go Mode in any case.
Albatrossity
Very nice set! It brought back a lot of memories.
cliosfanboy
Alas, back in the early 1990s I had a falling out with my parents. We reconciled but before we did my Dad apparently trashed almost all of the family slides, vacations, birthdays, etc. I only have a few left. I’ll have to dig them out and have them converted.
MelissaM
Tinsel. That stuff can’t be on trees that head to our recycling. It can look festive in old pictures, but I’ve heard of the horrors of putting it on (a parent insisting on single strand by single strand placement.)
Nice pictures. I like the dirty socks on the cowboys. Reminds me of my kids running around the house in socks.
Anyway
@NotMax:
I call that the Costco-size… in pre-Costco days.
JanieM
cope — these are great pictures — thanks for the memories and backstory. Congrats on going to live near your family.
@MelissaM:
One strand at a time was de rigeur in my household: both parents were neat freaks. Plus, my dad, Mr. Frugal, insisted that we take it off strand by strand and save it carefully for next year.
All the mentions of tinsel yesterday and today lead me to observe that the Christmas trees sold now — at least around where I live — are trimmed as they grow so that the branches are very dense. It’s a painstaking task just to find places where ornaments can dangle a bit, never mind tinsel. I don’t want tinsel anyhow, but if I did, it wouldn’t work. (/Grinchy comments)
Juju
Cope. I love the pictures. It almost feels like our families should have known each other. I am also one of five, two girls and three boys, but the oldest child is my sister and I am second from youngest. We were also in Illinois, but in Champaign, not Northbook. My dad also took slides only. There is a drawer full of boxes of the slide seconds in a living room chest, and a closet full of slide carousels with the first choices elsewhere in my mother’s house. I may have to look into the digital slides thing that you did. We also had tinsel and random homemade ornaments on the tree.
Have you considered a sweater and dog booties to keep you dog warm? I live in NC, so it’s not really an issue here, but I’d do it if I moved where it’s really cold.
mrmoshpotato
@Kristine:
Honk! Honk!
32°/0° forecast for Thursday, downgraded to 5.8″ of snow
4°/2° forecast for Friday
Kristine
@mrmoshpotato: The expected snow totals have been ticking down since yesterday. I hope they keep going ⤵️.
StringOnAStick
Depending on ages and all that, I grew up in G Jct from 1967-1983, when I left for grad school. My one remaining parent lives at the family home on the Redlands. What part of town did you find your new home?
way2blue
@HumboldtBlue:
When you’ve caught your breath and have power again—would be helpful to document your experience on the USGS ‘Did You Feel It?’ webpage. Every entry helps!
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc73821036/executive
FWIW. Epicenter is located just offshore, in the subducting Juan de Fuca plate. Lots of (much smaller) aftershocks…
cope
@StringOnAStick: We are in fact on the Redlands, in the Ridges area.
Tehanu
It’s great that you had books in your house. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in people’s houses and the only books were a cookbook or two and maybe some leftover accounting textbooks stuck on a bottom shelf in a back bedroom.