Memories

I can't even remember the last time I needed an alarm clock to wake up. On days I'm not coaching, I don't even set an alarm, and usually wake up in time to get in a short run before swim practice. And the time change (which seems pretty silly to me, anyway) has never required a huge adjustment.

But I know that some people are unable to wake up without a violent external stimulus. My son, for example, requires the equivalent of Yoko Ono shrieking played at jet engine decibel level if you expect him to get out of bed before noon. My upstairs neighbor's alarm buzzer rattles the commemorative Star Trek glasses (from Burger King) in my kitchen cupboard. If you also happen to be like that, well, you might want to take advantage of one of the cell phone apps that wake you with your favorite motivational messages.

Whatever works. As long as you get to swim practice on time. That's the important thing, right?

On an entirely different topic, I was recently contacted by the great granddaughter of my great granduncle (or something), who was interested in our family's genealogy. She has done extensive research, but was missing a few connections that I had managed to find. She also wondered if I had any photographs of some of our common ancestors. I told her I thought I did.

My dad had given me an old steamer trunk full of sepia photos, some of which are from the late 1800s. I also inherited my great aunt's collection of 35mm slide carousels. They've been sitting in storage for several years now, but this weekend, I got them out and began the thrilling process of discovery!



The first challenge was to dig my slide projector out of its moving box at the bottom of a large pile of other moving boxes. (Yes, there are many cartons that have not been touched once since I moved into this place four years ago. I recognize that I need to do some serious sorting and purging, but until I win the Lotto, my free time for such activities remains in short supply.)

The second challenge was that the carousels were not compatible with my projector. This means that I have to physically pull each slide from Aunt LaVon's tray and insert it into one of my own. Tedious, but not particularly difficult.

So far, I've been through a tray and a half. The first one was 80 slides of a 1968 circus performance. There were lion tamers, trapeze artists, elephants, and some random spangle-garbed performers standing around waiting to jump in the ring. Not one single shot of any of my relatives.

(Well, unless one of them was a tightrope walker or something. But I don't think that's the case.)

The 2nd tray contained shots from a 1969 trip to Colorado. Aunt Von and her husband Virg lived in the godforsaken wastelands of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, so I'm sure they were greatly impressed and inspired by the majesty of the Rockies...but I get to look out my window every single day and see stuff that's totally as spectacular as what they photographed. And again, there was not a single shot of any family members.

I'm guessing that I won't find anything of great interest anywhere in these boxes. They're all labeled (which is nice), but appear to all contain various vacations -- which means that I'm in for several hours of clicking through landscapes, city streets, and non-Oklahoman statuary, etc. Yawn.

Oh well. I dug them out and got the projector set up. Might as well see it through. If I unearth anything interesting, I'll share it here. But if you find me snoring with my head on my desk because I stayed up too late screening snapshots of limestone caves and zoo critters, just let me sleep, OK? Thanks, and have a great day!