Baby face...

My mother and my brother... 1941. I always said they were exactly alike!

One of my projects recently has been putting old VHS tapes of trips and such on DVD. I think that, given how quickly I'm aging, they SHOULD last my lifetime (ha!). One of the VHS tapes I have is of old Super 8 movies that were put on VHS and now will be moved to DVD. They have no sound, and, since this is the third transfer, not a lot of good viewing. They DO have history, however, which makes them priceless. My father is on these tapes. There was video taken of my father with VHS before he died, but no one seems to be able to come up with it (another reason I'm transferring these tapes). There is something about watching the people you love MOVE, as opposed to still photos. You see so little in a snapshot...

Which brings me to this picture. One of the parts of the Super 8 movie tape is an old 8mm (?) taken by my father in 1940 and 1941. He couldn't afford to have a motion picture camera, but he either rented or borrowed one just before my father was born, and just after. The tape is incredible. Blurry, out of focus, worn by age and choppy, it shows my mother... my tiny precious mother pregnant with my brother. She is a ball of energy, smiling, laughing, bouncing around as only she HAD to. She was a tiny thing.. not quite 5 ft tall. After my brother was born, there are several incidences that were filmed: Mom handing him to her mother, Mom coming down the steps with that old HUGE baby carriage, and Mom playing on the blanket with my brother. She does and doesn't look like this picture. MOVING, she has an entirely different look.. alive and interested and happy and proud. Only part of that shows in this picture, taken , it would seem, at the same time as the 'video'. Curious...

The other great thing about this little snippet of film is that my mother's sister and her husband are there, newly married and so visibly in love. My grandparents are there; Poggy in his ever present suit, Bonnie in her coat (fur?) and HATS hats HATS. They were 64... not much older than I am, and they seem so OLD. It's the fashions, but in the film you can see that she's NOT as old as those still photos make her out to be... in spite of the hats! My mother's mother is there, 20 years younger than they are, but looking older somehow. She's 45 years old!! I just calculated that and I can't believe it! OMG! What a find is this small piece of film...

So keep those cameras rolling folks, you never know who might be watching 60 years from now... or how much they might care.

me!