from about 1978-80 and emailed them to our daughters. These were taken about a year before Don's accident and I don't think the girls would remember too much of the time before. our eldest remembers bits, but our youngest only remembers the odd image of the house but not her dad before he was injured.
The house we rented was old on the outside but really comfortable inside and close to the beach. it cost us $12 a week at a time when our friends were paying about$100...so we were pretty happy little Vegemite's. The owners were going to pull it down to build a block of flats (which never seemed to happen - we were there 5 years and it stood for about 3 more years after 1982 when we had to leave.
They told us we could d
o what we liked to it and we did...every room was painted differently...our artist friend Alan (who died just before Don sadly and was a lifetime mate of his) painted the kitchen all with hibiscus and other tropical flowers...the back bedroom was dark blue with orange stripes.Remember straw grass matting - everyone had it in those days who could not afford any other sort of covering.
(Melissa 6, me, Alison 3 and Don. )
Remember Polaroid cameras... it was what we had...Don's patiently counting down the seconds it took to develop photos right there in your own home!!!Modern technology!
Don and Melissa on Don's horse Lucky in the huge paddock behind the house. We had as much land as we needed and Don planted rows of vegetables as well as a yard full of chooks, some ducks, cats, and at one time a doggie.Somehow we managed to feed all of them and us and even tho no money in the bank it was a time when you didn't worry too much.
I made sure Alison got this one as well as she would not remember her dad ferrying her about like this, just for fun... I remember this day and he even put in an old worn out bit of cloth for her to not have to sit on the dirty wheelbarrow - I think it was an old work sloppy joe...or something - he had a big rag bag collection for his work...
13 comments:
If they are Polaroids, they have held up pretty well. Good to scan them to save for the future.
Your hippie credentials are confirmed with painted tropical flowers on your walls :-P
I love looking back over old photos. I have some of my Nana's photos albums that bit by bit I'm scanning and cataloguing (as time allows) and once that's done my own photos (predigital) so that they are preserved digitally before the silverfish find them.
isn't it funny how little money we needed when we were young and carefree.
Those were the days:-)
Interested to know what kind of scanner have you got? Would love to get one and go through our old photos.
You guys were so young and cute!
..and what a deal on your rent.
I think it's fantastic that you have all these photos from back in the day.
I've never asked, but how old were the girls when Don had his accident? Do the girls remember these wonderful times forever memorialized in photos?
I absolutely love those images, and your story telling in between them. I loved growing up in the 1970's and I would not want it any other way. Things were carefree. Sure, I knew we were not rich either, and we had four kids in the family, but life was good, there was enough food on the table and we played outside in the paddocks every day. I wish I could take my kids back to that time.
I drove them out to look at where I grew up, they wanted to live there! Well, they cannot, because my child hood house will be demolished to make way for a new freeway, along with about 40 houses and farms. Sadly..That's progress!
Andrew, only one of those was a polaroid. The other camera we sometimes had use of cost $29 and was an Instamatic!!!
Not quite hippies because we liked a few home comforts like tele (black and white of course)
Our friend Alan painted the walls...he took quite a shine to Don, not realising how straight Don was, but stuck with us when all the other so called mates dropped away. After all these years we still have Alan's photo on our wall...one of the goodies of this world
Janene...its quite a job doing this...I wish there was a scanner you could put on the coffee table in front of tele and save to a memory stick so you could do a whole 300 album and then record it on the computer or on a disc...I just can not sit in front of the computer long enough to scan the thousands we have...
Mom...and you know without all the "stuff" I seldom got bored...too much choice of what to do now.
Anne - those really were the days...My scanner is a Canon MP620 - it is quite a slow process though...
Sling - never thought of us as cute...we were too wicked for that - the rent was just pure luck...we saw this empty house when we hit port Macquarie and knocked on the door of the house next door...it was their house and they liked the look of us for some reason!!!
Rosemary...Melissa was seven and she remembers some things...some really precious things.
Alison was only four and she has no memory at all of her dad before the wheelchair - only one memory of the old house and that was when she was picking the flowery heads of the Coleous plants...
Cazzie, but is it really progress? Hold the dream, one day you might get the chance to move to a more rural setting but for now where you are is where you are meant to be...thats how i see life...nothing wrong with taking the odd lottery ticket.
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