Vacation

 

I've been converting my dad's 8mm home movies to digital files over the last few months. His 8mm movie period covered around fifteen years starting when I was already fifteen years old. So only the years between 1965 and the advent of video tape are covered. There are no moving pictures of us before 1965. Anyway, I am now up to the year 1973 and I have discovered some things that I found surprising. Having removed myself from the family home by 1970, I kind of ignored what was going on back there. What I've found on these later home movies is that the younger six siblings seem to have had a wholly different experience than the five older brothers and sisters. Last week I came across one of Dad's home movies titled 'Anaheim'. When I played that movie, I was shocked. Dad had taken Mom and six children on an airplane to California. They went to Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyland, Lion Country Safari, and Hollywood. WTF? I had no idea that Dad had come into some money back then. We had never gone on such an extravagant trip when I was a kid. No, it was shove the kids into a hot station wagon and take us to some small lake where we would all have to share beds and cots in a rundown cottage. I remember those long rides to Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Indiana. Hours and hours of riding in that car, not stopping for food or water. I do remember one time Mom packed a can of shoestring potatoes for us to snack on. Salty fried potato strips in a sharp edged can. It not only made me very thirsty, but I cut my finger on that can. Cut to the movie of 1973. There are my youngest sisters having fun on a big airplane, drinking free soda, eating snacks. All of them in big comfy seats and listening to music with those old tubular headphones. I didn't fly on an airplane until I was twenty two years old, and that was from Rock Island to Chicago on a DC3 that made two stops in between. I'm sure the younger kids had a wonderful time in California, but I'll always remember the fun we had rowing boats on a small lake, swimming through seaweed, and sleeping in a bed along with a few pounds of sand.