Old pictures

My Opa and me in 1947

My shelves and closets are stuffed with boxes full of loose photos. A couple dozen albums, some torn and pulled apart. Many pictures missing. They are all over the place, as through the years I've been pulling pictures out of albums when I needed them for something, some project, making copies for friends and relatives.

Many were pulled when four years ago I had two reunions in Holland. One with some girls from school, and one with my old girlfriends from my neighborhood.

So, we have pictures everywhere. These past few days I've been searching for pictures to send to my cousin in Australia. I have some of her siblings, going way back, and I'm talking the 1940's!
Also pictures of her mother when she was a girl.

I've had a bear of a time finding some of them though. A few of them I handled only a few days ago, I put them somewhere where I can't find them now. It's driving me nuts.

I've promised myself to make it a project one day to empty an entire bookcase, make room and organize ALL my pictures, put them into new albums and so forth. This will probably happen by the time Boo-boo is ready for college. *LOL*

Anyway, it has been much fun finding these old pictures, tiny square things you need a magnifying glass to see the details.

So as luck will have it, you can now go to your nearby Target store and use their Kodak machine to scan and/or enlarge them. Not expensive either. The folks at Target are starting to greet me by name now, I am becoming of their frequent flyer customers.

This morning I enlarged a few pictures I wanted for myself. To make some sort of collage with. (Ha! another project!)
One of the pictures is the one I am showing here. I must have been Boo-boo's age here. My proud Opa holding me. Me wearing a hand knit coat with matching hat and mittens. Most likely knitted by my mother's aunt, Rika. I had many cute outfits like that.

My Mom and her sisters/aunts were all very good knitters and seamstresses. My Mom made all our clothes pretty much until we went to high school. We never looked stupid, we always wore the latest styles, never had long dumb skirts, always very perky, fresh, and cute looking.
She once made me a winter coat (dark green with black velvet trimming) out of one of her old coats. Pretty amazing.

Anyway, to get back to my Opa. Not until I enlarged this picture today had I been able to see his face close up. He sure looks like a fun guy, a definite twinkle in his eye. He used to be in charge of peeling the potatoes at night. He would always carve faces in the potatoes, and it was always a sport to keep those potatoes from falling apart during cooking.


I am told he was quite the practical joker, used to drive my mother nuts, as he was always bugging her. He used to take me to school, when I was in kindergarten. When he picked me up we would go and buy a candy at the corner Jamin store. The Jamin stores are still in business today, still selling candy, like chocolate covered nougat bars, shaped like a diamond, wrapped in colored foil.

Sometimes we used to go and visit his sister, Tante Cor, who looked like a witch, had a wart, and smelled funky, as did her house. But then, in those days most homes of old people smelled strange, this was before showers and washing machines and rug cleaning machines.

My grandfather had a lady friend too. Her name was Mrs. Wisman. She lived a block away from us on the third floor of an apartment/tenement building. Long steep stairwell, straight up.
When the baker or the milkman would come by, she would lower a basket down her window with her shopping list and money, and would haul it back up with her purchases
.
I visited her with my grandfather, and I vaguely remember her parlor. It seems there was a lot of dark red or purple velvet, stuffed chairs, small mahogany tables with doilies, lace curtains and porcelain tea sets and other froo-froo stuff. I always thought she was some sort of rich old matron, very aristocratic, but very kind.

Which was interesting, now that I think about it, as my grandfather was a "putten leger"
Remember when I wrote that he worked for the Water Department, but I didn't know what he did there?
Well, my mom told me he emptied sewers! *lol*
You have to have a sense of humor to do a job like that!

I really didn't know. My Opa was always dressed like a gentleman, always the white starched shirt and tie, the hat, the dark overcoat.

He would take me to the graveyard to tend to the family grave. At the time only my grandmother was buried there, and a nephew, who died when he was a baby. Opa planted a flowering cherry tree which draped it's pink flowery branches gently over the headstone in the spring. There were always fresh flowers and plants, he tended to that grave like he tended to his garden at home. With so much love and affection. I remember the entire graveyard being very old, with a special section for priests and nuns, and all the walking paths were made from crushed seashells.

Today there are a few additional family members buried there, the latest my cousin's mom. I believe the family left her urn on top of the family grave. No more room at the inn.
It really is a pretty place, I visited it a few years ago. My sister thought I was nuts for wanting to *s*

Today was a pretty nice day. It was warm. Boo and I took a stroll around the neighborhood. She was still a little cranky, her upper teeth are about to pop out, so I have her some medicine.

I fed her dinner and while she and Wheelie watched the news, she rocked herself to sleep in the high chair, so I put her to bed at six.

Bugs is taking next week off, starting tomorrow. So except for Sunday night, when she is going to a concert, we won't have to babysit the little rascal until next Saturday.

Her Opa will miss her, and so will I.

But....I am also looking forward to taking afternoon naps and reading my books from start to finish.

Have a wonderful weekend y'all!

SGMKJ!