One of my favorite games was imagination in Mary Lazenby's enormous mimosa tree in her back yard. It had multiple large branches to climb and each girl could go out on her own limb and hang out. We felt like we were flying high above the small world below. The delicate, fragrant, wispy, pink flowers and tiny leaves were all part of the mystique, like hiding in a secret garden. Mary moved away in about the fourth grade so we couldn't play in that tree anymore.  

Marbles were best played in the dirt. The boys in the neighborhood played this more than the girls, but I liked the shared collection my brother and I had. One 'marble' was really a large metal ball bearing.

We played jump rope, individually with smaller ropes and if we had enough players we used a larger rope with one girl holding each end. We had a few rhymes to jump with, but doing Double Dutch and lots of running in and out was best done during school recess where we had a really long rope. 

Some school games didn't adapt well at home without a large group like Freeze Tag, Red Rover, 1-2-3 Red Light, Hot Potato, Mother May I, and Simon Says.

Doing the limbo didn't really require music for us. We usually used someone's broom. Hide 'n Seek and hand clap rhymes were okay with a small group. We also enjoyed the slinky, silly putty, Tiddlywinks, Pick up Sticks, Jacks, paper dolls, and board games. Favorites were Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, Candy Land, and Parcheesi. We didn't own a Monopoly game, so I always requested we play that one but it was a lengthy game. Usually it was time to go home for supper before we finished playing.

Card games included Old Maid, Authors, and Hearts. My mother frowned upon "playing cards" so we didn't have the traditional four suit deck. I first learned to play Authors and Old Maid with my grandmother. We would play out in her screened porch on a table covered with colorful oil cloth. Authors required more concentration, memory, and familiarity with literature. Old Maid was just fun.

Another great game we played at my grandparents' house was croquet. My grandfather made the wooden mallets and we used regular softballs. He enjoyed mowing the grass to get the yard ready for a few fun matches with my parents and brother. He was expert at playing, and just laughed and laughed when he got through the wire pickets with his trick one-handed slam.

There were many days growing up that I played by myself. I would often pack a little suitcase of doll items, grab my large baby doll Elizabeth Jane, and go outside in the yard for hours. Mother gave me an old camera to play with. It was a dark maroon German bellows camera. It looked like a 4" by 8" rectangle box. Opening it up, the lens pulled out accordion style. We didn't have film for it, but I 'used it' anyway, taking posed pictures of the flowers, plants, my doll, and our cat, Tiger.

My first real camera was a box Brownie. The whole family operated it, so it really wasn't mine. Mother instructed how to load the film - we had to be in a dark place, couldn't touch anything but the edges of the film, and we had to be sure to start winding the film before we closed it. After taking a shot, you had to manually dial the roll forward. Most rolls were 24 pictures, but my parents always tried to squeeze at least one more snap. Black and white film was the norm for many years. 

Later we got a flash camera for taking pictures indoors or outside with poor lighting. The large round bulbs kind of blew up - they got very hot and melted. You had to be careful when removing them not to get burned.

My mother became the primary photographer of the family after she bought her Kodak. She got involved in making changes on all the settings, relying on her light meter. She wanted to have a special camera to take pictures on her many trips to Mexico where she completed graduate studies in Spanish. She had dozens of rolls developed into slides, the least expensive method. This meant we had to have a slide projector. Each slide had to be loaded into the rectangular tray, turned a specific way or else the image was not upright. We didn't have enough trays for all the slides, so Mother would have to unload and load trays as we went along. This was the perfect moment to be allowed to leave the room for a snack or bathroom break. Often the images were the wrong way, and she would stop, take it out, reposition it, and start again. Tough times for kids with limited attention spans. After about three or four times of watching 100+ slides of Mexico, we started to groan when Mother wanted to have a slide night. She later bought a projection screen which was better than using a white sheet on the wall. The pictures were dear to Mother and brought back good memories. Thinking back now I wish we had listened more carefully for details of her trips. 

There were very few spontaneous pictures and getting just the right pose was a challenge. We always knew which pictures my dad had taken because they were only partial shots, with our heads missing. As cameras advanced we got the Instamatic with flash cubes and ones with automatic winding. A new camera was often under the Christmas tree.

I took a trip to the Holy Land after high school and one day while out on a tour I lost my camera. I was sitting down feeling sad about losing pictures of all the special places I had been. One of the elderly gentlemen on the tour came by and snapped my picture. Turns out he was using my camera and I was so glad to have it returned. Unfortunately those printed 3" by 3" color pictures are now badly faded and most are stuck to the old self adhering photo album pages we so often used. The negatives are now gone, but I had saved them for about 20 years.

There were travel articles warning of the dangers of moving through airport security systems - developing in the late '60s - that would damage your film. In the early days we hand carried our camera and all the rolls of film, asking the airport employees to carefully protect them from exposure. Film changed as cameras updated going from the 35mm canister rolls to the drop in cartridges. 

After trying to rearrange a closet recently I found over 20 old photo albums, from '50s black and whites to Polaroids. I also have a large container full of loose photos in the garage taking up space. Downloading them myself is SO time consuming and sending them out to convert to a CD becomes expensive. For now, I'm just going to reshelve the albums and put that organization issue on hold. 

It was sad to have to clear out some of my mother's house last year and realize we just can't save everything from the past. When it comes to shelves full of old snapshots, perhaps memories can be the 'photos' we keep instead.


                                  "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you." Philippians 1:3