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Saturday, February 20, 2021

Winter in a Different Year

I cry out from quarantine: Oh Lordy, are we all Bubble Boys Now?  I consult the past, when God and I were closer in age and referred to each other in the moment --Lordy, what God was called when He was a kid and I, Geo**ie. We observe the history of the future is not always influenced by visionaries, but by those who make best of the present. I guess this post is about us. Oh Lordy! See photo:



It shows us in the high Sierras getting several kids into their warmies after a lot of sledding and playing. It was winter, 1975. Henry Kissinger had been quoted, "90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name", and Nixon (of all people) ended a war. Chris's car was the cozy changing room and our van carried sleds and stuff.

Mainly, we were all in love with a new world that showed promise. We were all headed way the heck into the future. We're here now, and we're ok. Hope you are too.

44 comments:

  1. An amazing post and great photo. We were all in love with that promising future, weren't we? Sci-fi was big, and predictions for what we'd have/be doing in the next decades. I'm still waiting for those flying cars though...

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    1. Dear Margaret, I have changed my opinion of flying cars after having been in one that successfully saved a child by veering off the hilly road he dashed out onto. My '62 Chevy took to the sky and descended onto a vacant pasture. Nobody got hurt, but the car landed badly. Sadly, technology hasn't kept apace with flying cars or the chaos they would bring.

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    1. Dear Emma, indeed past, present and future are defined by our progress in spacetime. We navigate as best we can away from disorder, from entropy, and sometimes we navigate pretty good.

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  3. The past was never as perfect as I fondly perceive it to be, but it is immensely more preferable to our present masked incarceration of eternal fear. "Lordy",indeed...
    Sweet photo of you and Norma.
    Take care.

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    1. Dear Jon, I know. Past was imperfect but we were stronger and easily dismissed reality's quirks. In 1968, my room mate, Waymire, and I were walking thru Oddfellows Cemetery and came upon a heartbreaking hundred graves from 1916 thru 1919 --babies. This is what our parents told us about: the huge pandemic. My great uncle Joey sent all his hotel's ladies out as nurses, but kept them on the payroll. Likewise we must ALL work from this lesson of the past to make the future safe.
      Re. photo, will relay compliment to Christina. Can you believe those children changing clothes are 50 years old now?

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    2. Geo - did I mistake Christina for Norma in the photo? If so, I'm sorry. It's difficult to discern who she is due to all that lovely winter attire.

      The snow here in TN has vanished. It's now 50 degrees with rain.

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    3. No, you got it right. What you see is a well-insulated Norma. Christina took the photo. I met Chris in 1969. We adopted each other as spiritual siblings. Introduced her to Norma that year, same thing happened. She is still our close friend over 50 years later.

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  4. Ah, Sherlock, er Geo**ie, er, Geo. Your pipe adorned self was dashing. (And still is.)

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    1. Thanks dear Bruce, my pipe is much less in evidence now and so is my dash, but the family and friends turned out real good and I'm still on my feet.

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  5. You looked a bit like David Niven.....
    I remember a year later, when Jimmy Carter was elected, thinking 'we've finally made it happen'...we have a President who quoted Bob Dylan.

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    1. Dear Mike, I recall Carter and Dylan became friends around that time and remain in contact. Altho I never met David Niven, I sure admired his character and acting ability. His book, "The Moon's A Balloon", is in my shelves. Thanks for the compliment.

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  6. 1975, that was the year I graduated from high school and started college and learned to pray real hard that we didn't decide to go back into Vietnam as I had a draft card...

    https://fromarockyhillside.com

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    1. Actually, I didn't enter seminary until 1986--it took me a while to find my way. I graduated from college in '79

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    2. Understood, by '86 I had been outdoors 7 years, providing for my family without harming the planet. Retired 2009, but remain a gardener. Surprised the hell outta me!

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    1. Dear Jackiesue, I trust the trial receded into tribulation and remained in the past.

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  8. This was such a great post and I so enjoyed seeing you and your family in ‘75. I am doing OK and am vaccinated. I hope you and Norma are also. I so look forward to spending time with my wonderful family soon. Maybe, I will get to go to California one more time.

    So many of my comments disappear when I tap publish and it frustrates me so. I hope this one gets to you.

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    1. Dear Arleen, Longtime friend Christina sent us that fun old photo a few days ago. I had never seen it and was surprised Norma and I look like infants --as did the photographer at the time. What the heck were our mommies thinking, letting us go around getting married, having babies and stuff?

      Vaccination is still prioritized for groups more at risk than we are here, but Norma and I have called into our doctors' answering machines and await word.

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    1. Mia cara signora Consigliera. It is a surprise gift from our friend Christina, and Norma and I love it too. It was a troubled time, like now, and we made it look more fun than it was, I guess. A decade of assassinated democrats and civil rights proponents preceded that photo --Kennedys, King, Geo. Wallace (Can anybody forget photos of brave, beautiful Cornelia diving onto her husband's fallen form to take any other bullets for him?). And yes, he was a democrat --even from a wheelchair.

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  10. It seems we can always remember better times. This winter is for the young. I am glad I skipped potions of it by going on vacation for 24 days.

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    1. I sure hope we can remember better times, and plan future ones. It takes good brains with plans for a more compassionate future --a process proven effective in the past, ones we are still capable of producing.

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  11. Our present time is to make happy memories to sustain us in the future when life seems difficult. Looking back, you can now remember happy memories.

    God bless you and yours.

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    1. Thank you dear Victor. I know we try to expand happy peaceful times beyond the moment, sustain them, but humanity often falls short. Photography helps. Invoking a Universal Entity does too. Blessings appreciated and reciprocated.

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  12. I love it when people reflect lovingly and see the path that they travelled as a worthy one full of all sorts of twists and turns, yet yes, here we are!

    1975? That sure was along time ago, wasn't it? But yet it seems like just yesterday in so many ways. I think if I could have done one thin differently, I would have taken more pictures.

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    1. Dear Mildred, it is very true what you say there. From '68 thru '75 I took hundreds (perhaps thousands) of photos for 2 newspapers and yearbooks, no credit, moonlighting --big do's and fashion shots mainly-- while working other jobs. You know, we did what we had to do --because we were inexhaustible-- to stay afloat financially while being babes (bearing our own babes) in the woods. Even so --I too wish I'd taken more photos back then. I covered many events, but most enjoy photographic progress of my family.

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  13. So love the pic of you and your love and young family, friend Geo :) And now, if you would excuse me, Theo Thunderbutt and I will go hibernate some more til April or let's make it May. Sending love, happiness and health. c.

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    1. Thank you my dear. I wish you --and Theo-- a happy hibernation and look forward to the pleasure of your renewed online company. I wish you love, happiness and health too.

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  14. Looking back at the past now makes many realize that those were indeed happier years. It's doubtless that the recent and current years will be looked at as fondly.

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    1. Dear Beatrice, There are far too many good people who believe and insist upon Love, Respect, Reason and government by Discussion and won't give in to Greed, prejudice and thoughtless Tantrums to let current years decline into evil memory. I too look forward to a rational future, a happy future. We can do it. We always have.

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  15. Oh wow! I love vintage pics of my blogger friends! I have to admit, I, like Jon, also thought you meant that the gal in this photo was someone else! Thanks for clearing that up. :-)

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    1. You're quite welcome, I have checked the photo again and am quite certain Norma was herself that day. Best wishes to you!

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  16. Glorious photo - especially fond of a bobble hat. In 1975 I was 5 and had never seen snow but fell in the sea all year round. Elemental fun and optimism :-)

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    1. Dear Lisa, I too am in favor of fun, optimism, elements and those little pom-poms on bobble hats.

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  17. Thanx for visiting my blog. God bless.

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    1. Visiting your blog is always a pleasure.

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  18. I wrote out a long, elaborate comment several days ago, but it was lost to the ethos (not sure why, but it has been happening on several blogs I comment on these last few months).

    A briefer restatement:

    I love the photograph you have posted. It reminds me so of a gentler time! Your young kids are adorable and even though it is a wonderful image I wonder if you feel a similar melancholy looking back on the image as I do with my own kid’s similarly young photos. I think of what I wish I would have added more to those grand times if only I had more energy to have done so. And then I think about how I need to try harder and be more energetic today as well, but that I end up just being what I am.

    I also would love to know what type of car that was? I am usually pretty damn astute at recognizing nearly every model of car from the 60s and 70s, but that one has me flummoxed.

    Your pipe too, seems so wonderfully natural and real amongst the backdrop of this times as it was for me as well. I miss that too. If you can recall, was it likely filled with Prince Albert at that time or another brand?

    PipeTobacco

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  19. Oh no! I hope that one did not go into the ether as well! It did not have the usual “will show after moderation” tag line. (sigh).

    PipeTobacco

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    1. Dear Prof., glad your comment came thru! I too have had problems with Blogger lately --more "improvements" perhaps? I hope Blogger stops before it improves itself out of existence. It was indeed a time of great energy, love and auto repairs. I'm pretty sure Christina's car in the picture is a 1970 VW Squareback. It had an unfortunate, flattened-out "suitcase" version of the old air-cooled "doghouse" engine I was used to (a sort of Bloggerish improvement). I used to help her brothers pull the engine (saved about $75), which they'd take to a rebuilder. Thing was just prone to overheating. People helped each other a lot back then. You know.

      And yes, it WAS Prince Albert, cheap tobacco with no cloying scent. Can't find it in stock anywhere, but I don't smoke much anymore. Sometimes I go out to the pumphouse and grab my pipe from old habit, peer down its bowl for anything combustible, then return it to its little tray and work on something else.

      Despite both your transmissions appearing on my email --a feature of "moderation" mode-- tonight I will check my comment settings and make sure there are no problems here. Best wishes to you, Prof.

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  20. Ah! I WAS in my mind thinking a VW Squareback..... but for some reason the little glimpse I could see of the tail-lights seemed not “VW-like” for some reason. I am glad I was at least on the right track. :)

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  21. Love the photo, Geo! Never in a million years could I have imagined my future, but I am very happy that my present is what it is, even as a Bubble Gal. Terry and I will burst those bubbles soon though. He gets his second Covid shot next Wednesday. We'll wait two weeks beyond that, and then it's Vegas, Baby! If it's seems relatively safe, that is. I hope that you and Norma are doing well. I was sad that some of your seven kitties were homeless thanks to Covid. What a terrible year this has been for so many people. Take care!

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