Fuzzy snapshots

Snapshot photos are deteriorating, yellowing, in the photo albums under the clear "protective" film. They aren't held in place by little photo corners purchased at the Ben Franklin for a quarter like my first albums. The 1965 photos from my Kodak Brownie Starmite camera are still clear. Snapshots of Grandma, her house, her older sister, Myrtle, Camp Fire Girl cook-outs, and slumber parties when we packed our nightgowns in our moms' Samsonite cosmetic cases are all well-preserved. How bizarre. We thought nothing of taking a bubble bath, three nine-year-old girls in a tub back then. We would bake a cake, lick the beaters, or eat tuna fish sandwiches and watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents...

These yellowed photos are more recent; color Kodaks from the summer of 1985 taken on a visit to hotter-than-hell Tyler, Texas. My brother was back from England with his wife and small son. My sister, mother, two sons and I drove down from Nebraska to see them. We arrived in Tyler, and went to McDonald's. Jeff, approaching his third birthday, tried to slide down the metal slippery slide in his little Carters outfit. Yow! It was hotter than McDonald's coffee, but in a less litigious era. The snapshots look like they were baked on that slippery slide like Jeff's little legs. Just remembering nursing the four-month-old Danger Baby in the backseat of the car parked on the asphalt at the Paris, Texas, DQ overheats a mama.

Who are those young, skinny people in the hazy photos?

Tomorrow I will drive across Oklahoma to find a college for a son who wasn't even born when this photo album was arranged. Sunday, Jeff will meet up with my brother and nephew at my dad's house. I hope they will take snapshots, make memories, and stay off the slippery slides.