The Terrible Catsafterme

In the early Summer of 1974, my Mom and Dad took me on what was probably a weekend getaway to the National Recreation Area known as the Land Between the Lakes – the lakes in question being Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. This area extends across two states, from Kentucky into Tennessee. We would have undoubtedly stayed on the Kentucky side. Unfortunately, neither Mom or Dad have a great deal of recollection of this early vacation, so all information must be inferred from the nice batch of photos below. There were certainly quite a few of them for such a short trip. Read the rest of this entry »

The Christmas of 1974 is somewhat of a ‘lost Christmas’. For starters, being just three years old at the time, I have very little recollection of it. Dad took just a little over two minutes of Super 8 footage of it and it was consigned to a little 50 foot reel of film, coupled with the footage of 1973 – and therefore infrequently viewed. And finally, the few photos that were from this Christmas were all consigned to Kodachrome slides, and therefore were never perused repeatedly along with the other photographic prints in our photo albums. Read the rest of this entry »

1974 came upon us, just as expected, and my family kicked off the New Year, our first one in our Beavercreek home on Echo Hill Lane. Life continued as normal after the Christmas tree came down and the toys were put away into my relatively new room. Mom was still working full-time with Connelly and Company, which means that I was still going to my Grandma Murphy’s house during the day…at least for the first month or two of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

The tree was up, the presents were wrapped, the food was prepared, and our little family was ready to enjoy another Christmas celebration. As a two year old, I’m sure that I really began to enjoy Christmas effective this year and also began to understand that by gingerly ripping off the wrapping paper on these boxes, I would find toys to distract and delight me…for minutes at a time! As you can see in the photo at right, there was certainly no shortage of toys under the tree to contribute to the spoilage of this two-year old. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the pictures I’ve located of me during my childhood, there are perhaps none so comforting as these – at least to me. It is unlikey that anyone – including my parents – can quite understand what they represent. But for a two-year old, I’m sure there is nothing quite so comforting, nothing so safe, as your own home in the company of your parents. Read the rest of this entry »