(This was originally published on my MySpace Blog)
My father has always been a bit of a shutterbug. His preferred medium was always 35MM slides. You know the kind you put into a carousel, set up a projector screen and have a family slide show with?
Those slideshows were a (usually enjoyable) part of growing up. Dad had a good eye, so there were never 15 pictures in a row of flowers, zoo animals, or somewhat out of focus landscapes to be bored with.
Dad worked for a company (associated with the Navy) that did Operations Analysis. As such he (and the family) got to live in a variety of places growing up. Earlier in his career he spent a lot of time on Navy ships. So we got pictures out the window of various, jets, helicopters and transports. Cool and fun for 10 year old Steve.
You might recall that in the late 60s there was a Really Bad Accident on the Forrestal off the coast of Vietnam. Explosions, fire and loss of life ensued. My father was on that ship, far away, fairly safe and confined to quarters for the 48 hours that it took the crew to get the pandemonium under control. He took pictures of the aftermath, I still remember those pictures. Six-inch solid steel deck-plate torn like cardboard. And the wreckage of planes and the Forestall herself looking like a camp fire the morning after you douse it with water.
For the better part of 20 years Dad took pictures of his and the life and times of my family. He recently got the urge to get them into digital format and share them with family and friends. He bought a 15-hundred dollar Nikon slide scanner with slide feeder attachment. He boxed and cataloged the slides and shipped the whole kit (and kaboodle) off to me: The history of my family boiled down to 1500 Kodachrome images in a metal toolbox-looking carrying case 15 x 7 x 4.
The slides date back to the 50s. A few from earlier. There are pictures of my mother’s family’s visit to her college in Colorado. Pictures of my father looking like a 50s version of a Calvin Klein underwear model. Pictures of my mother, father, aunt and uncle with a bunch of other people I just don’t recognize. Pictures of my parents looking impossibly young and happy and getting married. Pictures of my maternal grandparents together on the beach. Pictures, pictures and more pictures.
As I look at these pictures, not seen by anyone for at least 30 years, I feel a vague sense of unease. As if I was peeping in on the people in these pictures. As if, in the process of scanning and adjusting these pictures I am somehow an unwelcome and unknown visitor on Memory Lane. Poring over pictures of a life that is not really mine to view.
It is an odd feeling. As my father was careful to keep these pictures in (roughly) chronological order. I have only begun to appear in these pictures as a bulge in my mother’s clothes. No doubt in the next few weeks I can view my own childhood through my father’s lens. As the family grows perhaps I will feel less an interloper.
But then there are those pictures of the Forestall waiting for me.