I'm still getting things organized after our arrival home yesterday afternoon. If you didn't see my previous post (because I posted it so late yesterday), you can check that out to see our reunion with Olga. She's lying next to me as I type, sound asleep. She is palpably relieved at being back to our routines.
I also haven't taken any pictures yet, so I'll post some of the old photos I bought at that antique store in Jacksonville on Wednesday. You know I love rescuing old snapshots that would otherwise be lost and adding them to humanity's digital online archive!
First, there's this bunch of kids who have evidently been collecting old newspapers. I'm guessing this is from the '70s -- I vaguely remember doing this with the Cub Scouts. I suppose we must have made some money on it. The address on the truck is Watts Street, and there is a Watts Street in Jacksonville, so I'm guessing this photo was taken there. Check out the kid in the gigantic green sports jersey -- and that girl on the right looks like she's about to go into outer space.
"Myself and Nora B." are dressed in some fancy, flower-garlanded gowns with sashes. I wonder what the occasion was?
This is the weirdest picture of the bunch. It looks like that Frankenstein-armed man is about to grab that flinching girl, and the other two are catching him in the act. It seems purposefully staged, like they're acting out a scene in a play.
"Miss! I have a question about the penguins!"
This must have been a school outing to a museum, but that kid at lower left thinks it's P.E. and he's doing calisthenics.
On back: "Stevie."
This man seems inordinately proud of his tiny fish. On back: "July 1936."
This looks like it's probably a brand-new house -- so new they haven't yet built the steps up to the back door.
Finally, these last two photos remind me so much of "The Yearling," Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' book about a poor family in North Florida. They're both from the same page in an old photo album. That could easily be Jody Baxter's father above with his horse...
And this could be Jody with Flag. (In the book Jody is a boy, but I believe Rawlings based the story on a girl in her community who had a pet deer.)
I have a few more, too. I'll eventually put them all on Flickr in my "rescued photos" album.
The chaps in the stepless house seem very friendly toward each other, and ignoring the girl. I love these old photos
ReplyDeleteThese are great. Imagine the captions that could be written (by someone more clever than I).
ReplyDelete"Miss! I have a question about the penguins! Does the big one in the glass case behind me eat kids and can it get out?"
ReplyDeleteRecycling paper was a way of life in Britain in the '40s '50s and '60s and we used to collect the waste paper on the farm (animal feed sacks mostly) and take it in the pick-up truck to the waste paper merchant and were paid a few pounds for it. It was enough to make the trip worthwhile. I always think of this when people talk of recycling today as if they have just invented the wheel. I liked the photos and could relate to the waste paper one of course.
ReplyDeleteSo many possibilities, so many lives, makes you wonder. Great selection, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAs a museum docent the "penquin" picture sure looks like a class visit to a natural history museum to me. And it is not at all unusual for at least one kid to be acting up.
ReplyDeleteCheers
You have such a good eye for photographs, not only when you are taking them, but also when you are searching out old ones.
ReplyDeleteinteresting photos. that group of children at the museum? is so 50's.
ReplyDeleteI always look so closely to see if I recognize anyone which, of course, I never would. But I always search anyway! For some reason these abandoned old photos make me sad - I am glad you have adopted them, tho. ;)
ReplyDeleteWelcome home, Steve!
Imagining the stories behind the pictures is something that provides me with more hours of entertainment than I care to admit.
ReplyDeleteThese are so interesting. That staged one makes me wonder what they were trying to do. I laughed at your description of the kids at the museum. And that blouse or whatever it is on the girl in the first photo is fascinating. I don't recall sleeves like that on any clothes I had (thank heavens). These are fun to see.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting to look at photos that are simple clicks from someone else's past. Each one a view of our separate but in some ways common histories. Humans being humans through time.
ReplyDeleteYou found some interesting photos. I'm pondering what to do with my photos. They've been digitalized so the slides and pots are likely on their way to the dump.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos and captions. Looking at old photos gives me an eerie feeling since many/most of the people are dead yet captured in these moments of their lives.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun these pictures are. I cannot wait to see the rest of them.
ReplyDeleteI'm always a bit amazed at how much I enjoy seeing these random photos of people I don't know. You do such a great job of presenting them! When I saw the girl on the right in the first photo, 1970s was my immediate thought!
ReplyDeleteI think the one in the woods is staged the way people used to for photos in the fifties. I've seen a lot of fun dressing up scenes. These clothes look earlier though. Maybe reenacting a silent movie?
ReplyDeleteThey're all fun to speculate about. The flower filled dresses and hats remain a mystery to me.
Lots of variety here! I like old photos, too, whether I know the people in them or not.
ReplyDeleteThanx For Sharing These Photos - Totally Outstanding
ReplyDeleteCheers
A glorious collection of photos. I am not sure what the little boy in the front wearing glasses is doing but the little girl next to him is very interested - or horrified.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Lady Chatterley's Lover in many a year but I wonder if that's what they were enacting. Although the object of the bloke looks a bit too coy to be Lady Chatterley.
Andrew: Hmmmm...let's start a rumor!
ReplyDeleteMitchell: They don't even really need captions. Just let your imagination run wild!
YP: Not to mention that flamingo peering into the frame on the right...clearly in attack mode!
Rachel: Funny how we used to get paid for waste paper. Does that still happen? It seems like we just give it to the recycling people now!
Sabine: I love finding these traces of times past.
Peter: I had the same thought. That teacher standing in the back looks like she's about to scold him.
Ms Moon: I don't know what draws me to certain pictures. I guess I like a sense of liveliness or storytelling.
Ellen: Isn't it?!
Ellen D: I think old photos are such a treasure, a captured moment that I hate to see lost forever.
Ed: Oh, why not admit it?! :)
Sharon: It's a weird outfit, not only because of the sleeves but because that skirt is so short! It looks too small on her.
Robin: It's true, there is a common humanity running through them all.
Red: My word of advice is, DON'T throw away your slides and prints. Even if they've been scanned, film provides much higher resolution and better quality photos.
Margaret: They definitely make me consider my own mortality! But that's not a bad thing, necessarily -- just a fact.
Debby: I've put them in that Flickr album now so they're there.
Kelly: Yeah, I remember kids wearing clothes like that!
Boud: Yeah, I think that photo is older than the '50s. Looks more like the '30s, not just because of costumes but also photographic quality.
Jenny-O: A lot of old photos are kind of boring, but I get a kick out of sifting through them to find the interesting ones.
Padre: Glad you enjoyed them!
Caro: Yeah, Lady Chatterley would be lunging at him! LOL
Such amazing photographs, each one so rich with stories.
ReplyDeleteI love that you rescue these old photos. The stories behind them... starts the imagination going!
ReplyDelete