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.
Paul in Jacksonville
Here are a few from the past, some of which I know the year, some of which I don’t.
Christmas 1955. I was 23 months old. My due date was December 25; I emerged on January 7. My brother was born on December 21, and my sister was born on December 23. My mother’s birthday was March 17. Doing the math made me wonder if my dad got lucky once a year?
Tinsel seems to be the common thread we all share. My parents would pin the Christmas cards we received to the tree.
I was probably too young to fully appreciate this all metal fire truck. They don’t make toys today like they used to, do they?
Cannot figure out the year. Here we are, in front of our respective best gifts of the year. My youngest sister with her guitar, me and my stereo, my brother with his saxophone, and my December 23 sister with her sewing machine.
A few years later, my youngest sister with a bicycle, and me with a (in retrospect) stupid hat.
I thought a dress shirt would be a great gift for my dad. Turned out it was not so great. He worked a union job in a machine shop his entire life, so he had little chance to wear this type of shirt.
Under the “all holidays matter” proviso, I declare a birthday to be a holiday. Here I am with my niece Kelsea, sharing a birthday cake. Sadly, in 2006, Kelsea died at the age of 16 from a drug overdose.
Unknown date and not a holiday. Here’s a selfie from before they had a name. Happy Holiday wishes to jackals everywhere from Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
mrmoshpotato
Love the pictures-from-childhood posts.
That last one definitely isn’t recent judging from the quality and corded phone 😱!
sab
With all that tinsel on trees, it is amazing that so many cats and toddlers survived Christmas in the 1950-1980 period. Also too, early tinsel was lead, not cellophane.
eclare
I think the men’s dress shirt was a pretty common gift back then. I know my dad got one every year, and looking back he probably would have preferred a bottle of Jack.
I am sorry about your niece.
eclare
@sab:
I thought I remembered that, about the lead in the tinsel.
sab
My tinsel comment was kind of whining. I was a toddler then and I loved everything about Christmas. Especially the tinsel
sab
@eclare: My dad was a grinch and hated Christmas. We gave him the same ptesent for twenty years ( it was a shirt) and he never opened it, so we gave it to him the next year, for twenty five years.
raven
What’s with the Illini shirts?
sab
My stepdaughter was going to do Christmas. Yay, I don’t have to. Then she realized it was above her pay grade. Back in my lap.
I was very very angry. Snippy all week with my spouse. I did Turkey day. Our kids aren’t kids. They are in their forties. They can’t host a holiday!!
I have been nasty all week with the kids. They are his not mine.
Then one of them says they will host but we will bring the food. Fine with me. Baby steps for forty year olds
What is wrong with these people? They have parents but they are not kids. Borderline middle age and still acting like toddlers.
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
You bring the booze – for yourself. :)
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Oh i so love the passing of the holiday gatherings on to the next generation…..not. With my in-laws it was the opposite. My MIL was no way going to ever give over control of that gathering to anyone, not even her adult children. Ok, fine, you wanna do all the work, go for it.
People are goofy
Eta: you could do your own gathering but you by god better be there at her house the day she told you or else.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: Yes ! 🤗
raven
@MagdaInBlack: Did you see all the Christmas insanity in “Bear”? Jamie Lee Curtis was off the hook as the mom
MagdaInBlack
@raven: I did not. I probably should, it might look familiar 😏
Paul in Jacksonville
@raven: I was raised in Chicago. I spent a week at a music camp in Champaign, and the t-shirt was a memoir of that experience.
Paul in Jacksonville
@mrmoshpotato: You’re right, it’s not even close to recent.
raven
@Paul in Jacksonville: Awesome! I was born in Urbana and lived there for 18 years.
raven
@MagdaInBlack: It was brutal.
NotMax
[cue spooky music]
Looks suspiciously like the same yellow record on the turntable as appeared in another jackal’s photos earlier.
:)
Paul in Jacksonville
@ NotMax: I’m stumped, care to share?
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: That stereo looks very similar to the one I had. I think the color is the turntable.
Else we have a time traveling yellow record 🙂
WaterGirl
Ha! Because of our birthdays, my sisters and I used to joke that my parents had sex twice a year – on New Years and on their anniversary.
NotMax
@Paul in Jacksonville
From December 11th.
:)
Albatrossity
Ooooh, more tinsel!
For some reason, our cats never bothered the tinsel or the tree. No lead poisoning in our house! But this, from Wikipedia, is interesting. No evidence for hazard, so no ban on the stuff, just a request for voluntary cooperation from manufacturers and importers…
And the caption for the first photo made me chuckle. A back calculation leads to the conclusion that I was conceived on or about my dad’s birthday…
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: I am an only child. I firmly believe my parents had sex exactly once.
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: Hahaha!
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity: “Happy birthday, Honey!”
Paul I Jacksonville
@WaterGirl: when I was visiting my mom for her memorial for my dad, I told that story to the 75 or so people who attended. She did not deny my theory.