Slides

SLIDES

When we were younger we would , on special occasions like Christmas, and maybe birthdays, view the photographic slides of our family and places our family had been.

It was always a grand affair; setting up the screen, getting out the projector, leveling it on the coffee table, putting in the first of several hundred slides trying to get the focus just right, then the lights were turned off with the operator (It was quite a privilege to have attained the status of projector operator) would carefully insert the next slide, making sure it was oriented correctly. Upside down, and inverted , get it right or you, the one who attained the honor of projector operator, was the recipient of heckling until it was oriented correctly.

Most of the slides were in a somewhat chronological order starting somewhere in the forties and ending around the early sixties. It was a hodge-podge of family, places the family had been, and the homes of grandparents and relatives. It was my mother’s life…a slide show documented on two trays of slides. 

I’m not sure how the timing of the start of the viewing was done, but it always seemed that after the last slide was viewed, and everything was put away, it was time to go to bed; the day was done.

In life I am well into my second tray of slides, but I am not ready for that last slide and neither am I ready to put up the screen and call it a day, or life for that matter. I really don’t want to sit and review my life, it is not as happy or full of wonderful memories as some, and yes, there are regrets. To those who say they live without regrets, I say how can you go through life and never make a poor decision?

It is good to look back, to realize where you came from; it is not something I really want to do on a continuing basis, however. I haven’t done a very good job of documentation, either, and mostly what I have are memories. My slides are mostly in my mind; maybe3 that is why I am compelled to write…maybe it is a way of revealing my earlier years and sharing that revelation with people. 

I hope you enjoy my slideshow.