It’s Throw Back Thor’s day #TBT

It’s Throw Back Thor’s Day, and as I looked back through old photos, I was reminded of the pre-digital world I grew up in. Yes, there were cameras, but not everyone had one. Our family didn’t get one until around the time, we shipped out for England in 1955. Before that and even after pic TBT 52-55that, we went to the local portrait studio. These studio trips were always reserved for birthdays and Easter and always required a new outfit. And then there’s the one in the tacky flower girl dress. The ones in color, were hand painted for an extra fee. Color cameras were neither readily available nor affordable to the public til mid to late 50’s. We made do with the old Brownie and actually had an 8mm color movie camera before we got the Kodak color camera,  #TBT

Did You Stop and Smell the Roses?

I begin Throw Back Thor’s Day with

Dear Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, mother of the Muses,

How I wish you interfered a bit more in human affairs as you reportedly did in ancient times, and force us all to slow down and smell those roses.

I’m still scanning old photos and looking at some of them I realize:mark beret barbie

  • I might remember some names, but I’ve long ago lost touch with the people
  • I have no idea the details of what appears to have been a glorious day
  • I remember wishing in the midst of this or that holiday bustle that I had a fast-forward remote to get it over with.

How often go we go tearing through a day so intent on the destination, that we miss the journey?  I know toomany days on my morning 5-mile walk, I arrive back home and wonder how I got there.

Too few pictures of certain friends tell me we didn’t spend as much time together as we could and it’s too late now.  They’ve passed out of my life and some from this earth. Here’s Mark and Marsha.

I’m inserting into my life the Zen philosophy of ‘paying attention’, and Facebook, however irritatinmarsha 1g it is sometimes, is one of my most useful tools

It allows me to keep in touch with so many friends that might otherwise fall by the wayside, because the days are not long enough to visit and talk with everyone every day and many of them live far away.

On FaceBook we can share short messages, pictures, family events, our own or our children’s milestones, and arrange to meet-up at various shared events – all those little things that keep a friendship alive and memory fresh.

So as Mnemosyne has deserted me, Facebook, that meddlesome thing, allows me to keep in touch and share my friends lives and remember our times together a little better.

 

Throw Back Thor’s Day

It’s Throw Back Thor’s Day (Throwback Thursday on Facebook & #TBT on Twitter, I don’t post consistently every Thursday, but on the days when I’m in scanning mode, I take the time.

I started posting because I started scanning all the photos we rescued that the firemen thoroughly doused in putting out the fire that took my home in 2011.  I’m still scanning sporadically.  It was much too overwhelming to do all at once and there are hundreds of them still to go.  I keep going though, hoping to get them all into digital before they’ve faded beyond recall. pic-throwback thors day 7-3-14 pyote

It’s kind of fun to put some of them into PowerPoint framed and prettied up a bit along with a bit of history – my version of scrapbooking.

Having been an Air Force Brat through all of my school years, we moved every three years.  I made and lost more friends than many people will ever have.  I find pictures of past friends and am amazed that I remember their first names.  Fortunately, in 1962 Mom let me buy the school annual for the Pyote Panthers, so I could look up the two fellow brats I’m with in this photo. The Pyote School was an old brick building that contained grades 1-12.  There were 10 seniors and 7 juniors, etc….

Mom had chopped my hair again and I hated it, but beauty shop was not in Mom’s lexicon.  I was into can-cans and circle skirts which made my 22 inch waist look even smaller.  I kept a 23” waist into my 40’s which cost a lot in alterations as nothing off the rack ever  fit me.

So here’s my throw back for this week from Pyote, Texas 1962.

Day 21 Another 3500+ words & 1 Blog Today NaNo / NaBlo

Day 21 of NaNoWriMo Wordcount 41,777/ NaBloPoMo (21 for 21) 

Made my wordcount for the day on NaNo anything I write this afternoon, I’ll tack on to tomorrow’s count. Friday’s need all the help they can get.  Might not be much as I’m going to the McMinn Clinic’s open house “Botox, Bubbles and Bling” – for the Bubbles and Bling, not the Botox as I’m pretty content with my 64 yr old face.  Shifting gears now to Throwback Thor’s Day and Queries.

It’s Throw back Thor’s Day and I haven’t posted any retro pictures yet on Facebook.  I’ve joined some of my friends who post old pics from the way we were way back then – such fun.

Throw Back Thor's Day 10/24/13

Throw Back Thor’s Day 10/24/13

I started posting because since the fire in 2011, I’ve been scanning all the photos that we rescued soaking wet from the firemen’s thorough dousing before they’re faded beyond recall.

It was a 3 alarm fire and I’m still amazed that we were able to rescue as much as we did.  The fire was on a Saturday morning, and although I did a brief walk through with one of the firemen, my friend across the hall died in the fire and I just wanted the comfort of my mother’s home that day.  My cat and I spent the next 6 months there.  Moms are wonderful.

The Monday after the fire, my brother and I went back the following Monday to see what we could salvage.  It was apparent that thieves who prey on others misfortunes had already been rifling through things, but the trunks with all the old pics were in a corner of the bedroom which had half the roof and beams caved in upon it.

Tommy came over with his crowbar to pry open the warped closet doors; a sweet older street person volunteered to help and could he have one of my beers.  He probably saved my brother’s bad back some trauma by doing most of the heavy lifting.  He wanted nothing but the initial beer I handed him while we were taking a break, but I got a 12pack and $20 cash back at Wilson’s market next door to hand him when we were ready to leave.  He still waves hi whenever I see him in the neighborhood on my walks.

Excerpt from Murder is a Primary Color:
Virtual Search

The servo-cab eased away leaving Janet and Hurley on the curb leading to the Mayax University Library.  Janet loved this place.  Spire upon spire of glass and granite, like strong delicate fingers, reached through the very clouds to the heavens.  Janet and Hurley immediately hit the tram walk and then the lift, side by side, looking down as the ground fell away below them, and the servo-cab became one more dark green speck merging with the silver ribbon of roads that lead everywhere.  The Library entrance was a line of demarcation:  Through the prism of doors lay a soft expectant silence.  The din of the city hushed behind them by their noiseless closing.

Janet knew the way, down hushed halls of mauve and blue and silver hues and reflections of themselves on mirrored walls.  The private room she had called ahead and reserved was keyed to her prints alone – no lines to mess with – a privilege of faculty.  She touched her hand to the silver panel by the silver door, it glowed and the door parted.  She and Hurley walked in and sat at the control panel.  Hurley started punching contact keys, and Janet spoke “Computer, program being fed with parameters for a search.  Priority is A-A1-A, clearance is WWIII, all access, planet wide.  Request holographic mode with guide.  Please check voice print and proceed.”

“Working”, came the disembodied voice a second before materializing into a very attractive fair-haired male of about 25 who said, “Voice-print identified, verified, access approved.  Good morning, Janet, I am Stephos, we can proceed.”

And proceed they did, wending their way through circuits and corridors, seeing images of people and places, the Kanes and others.  At each point asking for data to be added to file for later hard copy.  It seemed like days, but it was only two hours before they were through.  Real time suspended when virtual time took over.  They had what they needed and the hard copy was just printing as they leaned back and bid adieu to Stephos., “Thank you Stephos, please save the entire program to my voice print and access code,” Janet finished.

“Program is saved.  Hard copy is generated. Guide terminating.”  He winked out and room became just another room again.

Mañana y’all.

 

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