Our holiday: Charleston on Thursday, then Tennessee. We cancelled Charleston, postponed Tennessee. I've been viral since Sunday. It's home movies day. My brother gave me Grandpa's projector, home movies from the early 60s. Trips, friends, family, flowers; our grandparents LOVED flowers.
Richard set up the screen, projector in our family room; I identify relatives, some flowers. Rochester's Highland Park, along with my family and my uncle's. We ride the mower, and the small garden tractor that pulled a cart. Young, silly, loved.
Couples, grandparents' contemporaries, arrive for a meeting, dinner, something. Men wear suits, dark fedoras; the women, dresses, pearls. They look like gangsters with wives. My grandparents with friends vacation in Florida. Cypress Gardens, Orchid House, water-skiing acrobats, flamingos, peacocks, tropical birds, Shetland ponies.
My family's Syracuse life, the youngest movie of my brothers and me. We rollerskate the sidewalk, wave American flags as we skate, Independence Day. The same skates that Dad mounted to the bottom of curved 24 inch boards to craft our skateboards in Norfolk: ships, softball, meals. We're young; my parents beautiful. I forgot how beautiful, how they smiled.
Another visit with grandparents; if we watched these reels in chronological order, this would be the last. I'm in 7th grade, Dale 9th, Grant 10th. Fifi and Muffin with us, running around the property beside the creek, chasing with my brothers and Dad.
Last reel: Flowers at Highland; Autumn view at home; Sky divers; Kennedy's funeral proc.; Norfolk Navy Base. Hot house flowers, friends, family.⠀ Grandpa's cousin was in Naval Intelligence, my grandparents visited him, his family frequently. JFK's funeral procession, afterwards, no smiles for the camera.
© 22 December 2018
Cindy B. Stevens
#HomeMovies #Memories #Family #Flowers #JFK #HorseDrawnCaisson #BeWriting #AmWriting #AmEditing #Bookworm #BookLove #LoveWriting #Inspiration #IGpoet #IGpoetry #Poet #Poetry #PoetryBlog #PoetLife #PoetryLover #WritersOfInstagram #Writer #WritersCommunity #WritersCorner #Wordsmith #WritersNetwork #Write #Writing #HillsboroughNC
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