Twenty Year Photo Challenge!

A few days back Vicci posted a challenge to “Go find one of your favorite photos...from lets say...at least 20 years ago....and POST IT.....tell us a story about it..and why you like it so much..” Anyone reading my blog please join in!!! Here are mine!

The day of my friends wedding in 1981, I’m twenty five. About ten months before this picture was taken I left my husband for six weeks. The friend I stood up for begged me not to return to him! Another friend advised me to alleviate all doubts by returning. Reminding me I could always depart if I we were unable reconcile our differences. I went back, four years later I had a child, and ten years after that I left permanently….Should I have returned in 1981?


At twenty four years old, I had lost some weight and I was more confident than ever before. I was full of piss and vinegar, drove a corvette, and lived every waking moment to the fullest! Even though I was married, men loved me because I knew how to play hard. I would ballroom dance, golf, play baseball, pool, darts, bowl, bridge, crib, gamble, I could drink one for one and party till dawn! Those were the days my friend! That’s me with my dog Benji in my arms!

I remember that night. My parents stayed at my house for a weekend of bridge! Mom had a few too many and started picking at me. When she fell asleep, I had an intimate talk with dad. He explained how he witnessed mom suffer through the same treatment at the hands of her mom and aunt. He found it disturbing when my mom and her sister would gang up on me….with history repeating dad would always take my side. He had a great sense of justice!
Did I go on to repeat the behavior?
This is the only picture I have of all four of us together, its 1980! Mom is fifty six and dad is sixty one! Pretty sad! So I urge you, for the sake of your children have family pictures taken. I’m twenty four, my brother is Nineteen there! Five years before dad passed away! Check out my lily white skin.....I look like a ghost...Pepper has the same skin....

That’s me at two, I remember being out in the yard a lot while my parents gardened their rockery! Dad built that house by himself, with very little help and only an instruction manual. Not bad for a man with low self esteem and minimal education! I had pneumonia about four or five times when I was small, from three years on. Mom put a pillow between adirondack chairs that dad built, so I could be outside in the summer. I wasn’t to run around. Once recovered I remember often stubbing my toes while wearing thongs….yeah the old kind you put on your feet, not the bum floss!

That’s my first day of school. My mom dropped me with a friend because she had to work. That was an awful scary day that I still remember. I was a sad little girl, my mom worked full time, plus she was a busy home maker too! So there wasn't much spare time for me. I can’t say I liked being a child, I always felt melancholy and lonely. Those knee socks were my pet peeve, with no elastic in them. I remember having socks like that for years. Maybe that’s why I hate socks….hmmmm….my daughter has a gazillion of them!!! She always gives them out as gifts too! If she never bought another pair of socks again she’d have enough to last the rest of her life! She must be a sockaholic!
This is me with my first set of dogs, they were a litter apart. Peppers dad brought the first home from a neighbor. I said no dogs, but who could resist a dog name Angel with a little white face. A year later Angels mother had another litter, with my couch having a chewed hole in it, I said emphatically“ NO WAY”, but look at his face….I succumbed to the pressure of his cuteness! Those dogs were the greatest of friends and had the best disposition. They’d run down our fifty foot driveway then halt at the end just before the road. They were great pals and kept each other company when we worked. Those munchkins devoured a few chocolate bars while we we were out leaving behind a mess. So I started leaving the music on when we left! It’s true, music does soothe the savage beast! Benji lived to eighteen!



The last picture is a favorite picture of my youth. I was twenty two; I loved my stacked big hair and le Chateau burgundy suit. There was a beautiful light lilac parrot broach pinned to it. It was lost over the years, but it was fabulous. That was taken at my sister in laws wedding, she too is now divorced from the other brother. I remember the parents at that wedding wishing their daughter had married my husband instead of who she was marrying. Ha ….little did she know the rebel attitude was hereditary! It’s fitting that I am holding my glass up in a toast….so I say to my youth, faded but not forgotten! Schast'ya i zdorov'ya!

I am thinking I have a few more I want to hunt for, these were left over from my fiftieth birthday collage! Thanks Vicci for the stroll down memory lane!