Nostalgia Night

So D2 was showing me pictures of her Israel trip, and there was the obligatory shot of her floating in the Dead Sea. I told her there was slide of ME doing that, back in '69.

Next thing, the two of us retired to our "Bonus Room", so named because when we bought the house, that's what the realtor called the second story above the garage, which we finished and turned into a guest house/ game room...And I found my family's old slide projector and slides.

Sure enough, the nearly 50 year old thing worked, and I projected the historical shots onto a wall where I took down my photos of the Orange Bowl...

One lesson we learned right away: when on a family vacation, never let the 8 year old take the trip's photos. I was clearly more interested in industrial sites, mines, cool buildings, and zoo animals than I was snapping people...

Still, there we found my parents and me --floating in the Dead Sea, walking at the Kotel, and drinking sodas in Tel Aviv...

D2 wss shocked at the sheer level of dorkiness of her father --particularly my choice of colorful seersucker pants, and many colored shirts (purple was a favorite). Hey --these were the Mod days in the Middle East!

We continued through the show, and found many other shots. My sister Susan and her Southampton College friends, circa 1967. My sister Trudy and brother in law Dennis at Southhampton, oh, a few pounds ago...

And one baby kept popping up in many of the slides. A young man who was clearly loved and worshipped by all in the family, who's now approaching 40, and hasn't been happy in years. D2 saw he was clearly a family favorite --first grandson and nephew, and treated as such.

There were shots of my 3rd grade field trip to the statue of liberty, where some of my current friends were clearly seen --Eric Grossman, Mark Anderson, and Mike Monahan. We're all now 50 or close -- 8 year old boys in the slides...

And my father. Oh, how I miss him so. He was my age in most of the slides, and he looked like a man in full. He was clearly so proud. My mother was truly a beautiful woman, always decked out in elegant clothes.

He had achieved some financial success: there were shots of a Miami Beach trip where he took his family PLUS my sister, brother in law, and grandson.

He was the Big Daddy in every sense. And the last thing on anyone's mind was that he'd have less than 15 years left on this planet when the photos were taken.

And so, I floated in the Dead Sea in 1969, and D2 did the same 42 years later. It mayt be time for another trip to Israel with Wifey and BOTH Ds...


I asked D2 if she thought the 8 year old boy in the slides ought to go again. She smiled and nodded...