Tidy Tidbits: Political & Personal

WATCHING: POLITICAL HISTORY

Argentina 1985 (Amazon Prime)

This political film is inspired by real events. It focuses on the groundbreaking 1985 civil trial of nine Argentine military leaders.  These individuals were charged with being responsible for the kidnappings, torture, and disappearance of hundreds of people during the country’s dictatorship period.  The main character is prosecutor Julio Stassera, a man who didn’t want the job and felt pressured into it and is also fearful.  It’s a gripping story of how Julio and his deputy and a team of young lawyers gathered accounts and assembled a group of individuals willing to testify in open court.  Recommended!

EXCAVATION: LIFE IN SCRAPBOOKS

Packrat Tendencies

I took a long trip down memory lane this past week.  I’ve made it my January project to sort, toss, and scan the contents of a closet.  This closet has essentially been untouched since we moved to Florida more than 8 years ago.  It was filled with stacked black plastic bins and one large cardboard carton. The large carton had not been opened since it was packed for a cross country move in 2007.  What I have discovered inside these boxes is a treasure trove of memorabilia going back to the 1960’s and earlier:  loose photos, scrapbooks, and photo albums. The pages in the oldest albums are fragile and crumble easily.

As a teen and through college, I was an inveterate saver and scrapbook keeper.  Every postcard I think I ever received or purchased from 1961 to about 1968, lots of programs for school plays, and concerts (Chad Mitchell Trio, for one), sports nights event lists, church choir festivals, birthday and graduation cards and selected correspondence.  To this day, I’m still a saver, but perhaps a more disciplined one.

Winter Wonders

I was reminded of the Christmas our family of six drove to Michigan with a stop in Ohio to visit cousins.  We had three Christmas celebrations, one with each set of grandparents and another with our cousins. We stayed in a motel one night each way. I saved postcards from the Tally Ho Motel in North Kingsville, Ohio (so cold a room we almost froze!) and from the Tiptop Motel in Canton, Ohio.  In Canton, we were all squeezed into the one available room.  My younger sister and brother shared a twin bed, one at each end.  The radiant heat (advertised on this postcard) was so hot, we departed at dawn’s crack.

Midst the many black and white photos were images of my siblings and me playing outside and running around with the neighbor boys (for a time, very few girls lived our street). Also black and white snow scenes of our driveway and yard after the Blizzard of ’66.  We lived in town and that was the only time I can ever remember getting three days off from school for the weather! 

I also discovered class photos and report cards from kindergarten through 4^th grade from my elementary schools in Syracuse and Auburn.  I remember fondly my two favorite teachers, attractive young Miss Rosa (2^ndgrade) and seeming-to-me very old, Miss Peterson (3^rd grade).  Miss Peterson lives in memory for her teaching, but also for falling forward, fainting,and hitting her head on my desktop.  It was scary, but she was fine.

Scrapbook Maven

My mother had a special talent for creating noteworthy scrapbooks for anniversaries and other special occasions. I smiled and chuckled as I re-discovered these works.  The first one was for my Hancock grandparents’ 40^th wedding anniversary in 1961.  It was done in the format of a magazine called ”Family Fortune” with an image of John Hancock on the cover. Contents included family photos, cartoons, and humorous anecdotes, plus letters from the grandchildren.  \

In 1972, for my other grandparents’ 50^th anniversary, she designed a scrapbook as a yearbook in recognition of my grandfather’s long career at the University of Michigan. My siblings and I and our cousins contributed to both of these volumes. 

In later years, the Chief Penguin and I were the recipients of “International Cooking with Jean & Greg” on our 10^th anniversary and then “Father and Son” (Dec. 1986) highlighting life with Tim.  Birthday scrapbooks followed for me (2001) and each of my siblings illustrating our individual life stories along with photos of our grandparents and great grandparents.  

Whether these volumes will be of interest to the next generations or not, they document lives well lived.  And thanks to the Chief Penguin, scanned copies will now live in the cloud. 

Note: Header image of scrapbook spread by JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)