What Happened in June 1964?

These are three photographs that were developed in June 1964.  The date on photos indicated when they were developed, not when they were taken.  I believe they were taken in front of my family's home in La Puente, California.  The first two are of me, while the third is of me, my mother, and my sister Stacy.

What's that, you say?  You don't see my sister in the third photo?  Ah, but she is there.

If you'll note, my mother looks rather pregnant in the photograph.  And even if these photos were taken in, say, April or May and then developed later in June, that means Stacy is there, because she was born on June 16, 1964 in La Puente.

So this may be the earliest photo of Stacy that my father ever took.  Happy birthday, Stacy!

A Photo of My Mother for Mother's Day

Myra (Meckler) Sellers, Janice Sellers?, Sam O'Connor

It's Mother's Day today, so I went scrolling through the great photo bonanza to find a new (to my blog) and interesting photo of my mother to post, and I came across this one.

As usual, with all the photos taken by my father (and I'm sure my father took it, particularly because it is black and white), it is unlabeled and unidentified.  But I recognize my mother on the left, and I'm now pretty sure it is Aunt Sam on the right.  I think the child looking goofy in the center is me.  My estimate for the year is about 1967.

This kitchen appears in several photographs from the bonanza.  I think it's in our house in La Puente.

The photo appears as though it could be torn on the left side.  As I do not yet have the originals (subtle hint to my sister), I can't verify that.  It's possible that the big white void could be a refrigerator or freezer.

There was probably no occasion or special event.  Sam happened to be visiting and my father simply liked taking photographs.

My mother has something in her hands, perhaps a small box.  Maybe it was some kind of pills, such as aspirin.  She's laughing, as though she thinks it's funny that my father is taking a photo of this scene.

Happy Mother's Day!

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Genealogy Highlights for the Last Month?

I'm a little late, but not too behind to jump in for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for the week.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  What genealogy fun have you had this past month?  What is your genealogy research highlight of the past month?  It could be attending or watching a Webinar or local genealogy society meeting, finding a new ancestor, reading a new genealogy book, or anything else that you have enjoyed.

2.  Share your January genealogy fun in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

I haven't had much time for genealogy during the past month, because I've had to keep an 8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. schedule, and that is way too early in the morning for me.  It makes my brain mush for the rest of the day.  But one recent blog post encouraged me to rethink a question I had posed previously.

For my mother's yahrzeit, I considered things that my mother hadn't told me, including the name of our poodle (Pepe) and how I acquired a scar on my left arm that I've had since I was very, very little.  Writing about those two items together made me suddenly wonder if the reason my mother never told me the name of our dog was because he in some way had something to do with the scar.  I'm sure I'll never be able to determine if that hypothesis is accurate, but it had not occurred to me previously, and at least it gives me a possible reason for why my mother "didn't remember" how I got the scar.

Not the most momentous discovery, but it's an example of how writing can help you look at things in new ways.

Errors of Omission?

Today is January 19, 2026, which corresponds to 1 Shevat on the Jewish calendar in the year 5786 (thank you, Steve Morse, for the handy-dandy Jewish calendar conversion tool).  My mother died on 1 Shevat; it is Jewish tradition to commemorate a person on the date of that person's death on the Jewish calendar, called the yahrzeit.  Part of how I remember my mother is by writing about her on my blog.

My mother is probably the biggest reason I became so interested in family history.  She and her mother (my grandmother) were always talking about family members, relating family stories, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.  I grew up knowing so many relatives' names and birthdays because of this.  But something I have been thinking about recently is things that my mother didn't tell me.

One of the most glaringly obvious things she never talked about is how she and my father met.  I heard about this from my grandmother several years after my mother had died.  I wrote about it ten years ago for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

My mother and her best friend (who happened to be my cousin) were on their way to a party when the car broke down.  My mother was fretting about how they would get to the party when her friend said, "Don't worry, my uncle is a mechanic.  He can help us."  And that uncle was my father-to-be, and that's how my parents met.

I have not yet filled in any of the holes in the story which I mentioned in that 2015 post.  One thing I did determine, though, is that my parents were apparently anxiously waiting for my father's divorce from his first wife to be finalized, because it was only about four days afterward that they were married.  I figured out when I was in 8th grade that my mother was three and a half months pregnant with me when they were married, and once I noticed how quickly the wedding came about, I figured they knew at the time that she was pregnant.

So did my mother never talk about how she met my father because it resulted in her getting married on short notice because she was pregnant?  I'll never know the answer to that question, but it is not an unreasonable hypothesis.

Chronologically in my life, the next thing my mother didn't tell me was the name of a dog we used to have.  She often told me about the dog, though.  I wrote a little bit about him for another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.

This was when I was just a little baby, possibly up to young toddler.  The dog was a standard poodle, and he protected me as I were his own puppy.  If my mother was upset with me about something and yelled at me, he would stand between me and her.  And he died of an epileptic seizure.

And that's all my mother said about him.

It occurred to me after my mother had passed away that she had never mentioned his name.  Lucky for me, my father was still alive, so I asked him.  And he knew exactly who I was talking about and told me the dog's name was Pepe.

Why would my mother tell me about the dog multiple times but never say his name?  I can't come up with a good reason for that.  It's possible that she didn't remember, but she had an excellent memory, so I have trouble with that idea.  Maybe she just didn't like him?  Is that a good reason?

A very frustrating thing that my mother didn't tell me about is how I got a scar on my left arm.  I blogged about it for National Scar Appreciation Day a couple of years ago.

I've had this scar as long as I can remember, going back to when I was really young.  I have no recollection whatsoever of how I got it, what kind of injury caused it, nothing.  That suggests to me that I must have been pretty young when it happened, because I have a good memory.

I asked my mother once how I got the scar.  She said, "I don't remember."  And I took her at her word.

Many years after that, well after she had died, a little light bulb went on over my head.

My mother became hysterical any time one of her children was bleeding.  The size of the scar and its longevity indicate an injury that must have bled, probably quite a bit.  So it would have been noticeable and my mother would have been hysterical.  And yet she didn't remember how it happened?

blink blink

Um, that doesn't make sense.

Unless, somehow, she had something to do with it.  Because then it wouldn't really be that she didn't remember, but that she wouldn't want to talk about it.

There was no abuse in my family, so it wasn't anything like that.  Maybe she turned her head and I cut myself on something?  Maybe she dropped something and it hit my arm?

Maybe it had something to do with Pepe, and that's why she never said his name?

Another question that shall remain unanswered.  At least until either time travel or talking to the dead becomes more reliable.

What else didn't my mother tell me?

Poodle image by MissKaren via Pixabay.

New Year's Eve 1968

Among the photos in the scanned photo bonanza I received from my sister, I found some photos that pretty clearly are from at least one New Year's Eve party.  Obviously, New Year's Eve is a great time to post them!

These four all seem to be from the same party.  I'm pretty sure this was our house in La Puente.

This photo is why I think it was New Year's Eve 1968.

This is my mother in what kind of looks like a Gypsy costume.

That's my mother in the middle.  No clue who the other two people are.

Maybe the woman on the left is Aunt Sam?  No idea about the other woman.

And this one might be from a different year.  It looks like New Year's Eve with the hats and the garlands but doesn't seem to be the same mix of people as the other four.  I think this is also in La Puente.

My mother and father are the two people on the left in the front row.
Some of the other people show up in other photos,
but I don't know who any of them are.
Usually my father took photos; I wonder who was
behind the camera for this one!

A Chanukah Past

It's Chanukah!  I cooked a lovely dinner last night:  Italian Chanukah fried chicken and yummy latkes.  The chicken recipe is my riff on one that, if I remember correctly, came from Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar.  It was traditional in Corcos' family for Chanukah.  I can't find my copy of the recipe anymore, so I've been winging it for the past couple of years.  Everyone raved about this year's version, so I have to try to remember how I made it so I can repeat it next year.

Since it's Chanukah, I went looking through my photos for some to post.  The only ones I could find for my own family were these two, which had to have been from 1968, which is when my sister Laurie and her mother, Mary Lou, were living with us in La Puente, California.

According to TimeAndDate.com, the first night of Chanukah in 1968 was December 16 (coincidentally the same date as today!).  So if I'm seeing the candles accurately in these photos, the first one was taken on the evening of December 20 (I see five candles) and the second one on the evening of December 22 (I see seven candles).  Does anyone see a different number of candles?  And that, of course, assumes that my mother did the correct number of candles on the appropriate days.

I can't figure out what the thing is next to the menorah in the first photo.  Maybe some strange kind of tabletop Christmas tree?  Or, as my mother commonly said, a Chanukah bush?

Myra (Meckler) Sellers, Laurie Sellers, Janice Sellers,
approximately December 20, 1968, La Puente, California

Laurie Sellers
approximately December 22, 1968, La Puente, California

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

A Pool Shill?

Today, August 9, is National Billiards and Pool Day.  It is noted as such on two of the "national day" sites (Days of the Year and List of National Days), although neither has any information about how it started.

I'm celebrating the day on my blog because my mother used to tell me about how she and our Aunt Sam (who was not our biological aunt, but my mother's close friend, so we called her "aunt") used to play pool.  My mother, as she told the story, was not that great a pool player, but Sam was.  So my mother got someone to play against her, and she would lose, then setting up the poor stooge to play against Sam.  That made my mother the shill.

Coincidentally, I actually found photographs in the "photo bonanza" showing my mother and someone I believe to be Sam playing pool!  Some people in other photos are playing pool or look as though they are in the same location.  I don't know who most of them are, but all the pool players are women!

This is the only easy identification, because it's my mother.
I think the woman on the right here is the one in the last photo (see below).

I think this is Aunt Sam, but I'm not sure.

Aunt Sam had a daughter named Cathy.
Could this be her?

This photo makes me wonder who the photographer was.
It could have been my father, but I don't know.

Here's the girl from the previous two photos,
with another girl and a man.  No idea who they might be.

And here's our final player!
Unidentified, of course.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Celebrate World Music Day

Well, I better like tonight's topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, since I'm the person who suggested it to Randy Seaver!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

1.  According to Wikipedia, today is World Music Day!  How should we celebrate?

2.  How has music affected your life?  What is your favorite music type?  What are your favorite songs?

3.  Share your World Music Day efforts in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

[Thank you to Janice Sellers for suggesting this challenge to me.]

I grew up with music and it has always been part of my life.  My father was a musician — he played piano and guitar and sang credibly well.  He used to play guitar and sing for my siblings and me when we were little.  We heard "Sixteen Tons", "Mairzy Doats", and "Aba Daba Honeymoon" often enough that we knew all the lyrics.  Then as we got older he would sometimes try to cut out a verse, but we knew the songs too well and caught him.

I don't remember Daddy singing so much when he played piano, but I remember listening to a lot of boogie woogie and blues.  One year when I posted on my blog for Father's Day, he commented and said that he started piano lessons when he was 8.  And piano was what he played when he competed on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour with Court's Jesters, although that was swing music.

My mother loved music also, but for listening to.  She unfortunately couldn't carry a tune in a bucket; when she was in a singing class, they decided her part was turning pages for the accompanist.  But she adored Broadway and movie musicals and played cast recordings and soundtracks a lot.  Those were more songs that I learned lyrics to.

At least by the time I was 8, possibly earlier, I was taking piano lessons.  Even when I was that young, I had long fingers ("piano-playing fingers", I have often been told), and instead of holding my hands in the correct upright position and playing the keys with my fingertips, I could stretch my hands out and fudge a little.

I wanted to play guitar like my father.  My hands were big enough when I was young that I could handle an adult guitar, rather than one scaled down in size for children.  Daddy was ready to teach me, but then I discovered that you had to cut your fingernails to play (and I couldn't cheat as on the piano), so I gave up on that for a long time.

Once, for some reason I absolutely cannot recall, I had an accordion lesson.  I took the one lesson and decided I never wanted to try to play accordion again.  That I have stuck to.

When my family moved to Australia, I learned to play recorder (an instrument I still own and can play!).  I also sang in some sort of school musical in the 4th grade.

After we moved back to the States, I had chorus for two years.  The first year was great, but then my voice changed, and I couldn't sing alto anymore.  The teacher, Miss Foster, eventually told me I could stand next to the boys and sing tenor, but I used to sing bass.  After that I had a fairly regimented class schedule, and I didn't have room for any more music classes through the end of high school.

When I went to college at the University of Southern California, I had heavy class loads and still no time for music.  But after I graduated, I started working at USC, and the next year, I joined the Trojan Marching Band (The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe).  I didn't play any band instruments, so I started as prop crew (kind of like roadies).  During the spring semester, when we were at a women's basketball game supporting the team, none of the cymbal players had come, and Mark Laycock called out for someone to play the cymbals for "Fight On."  And thus I started on percussion.  I marched three years in percussion in the band, playing cymbals (and occasionally bass drum for some small gigs when a regular bass drummer couldn't make it).

Working at USC, I was able to use tuition remission for classes.  One of things I did was take percussion lessons.  I had a really great teacher.  I think his given name was Dale, and I cannot remember his surname.  He was a spokesman for Sabian cymbals.  He was allowed to go through the warehouse and choose his own, matching them for tone.  His cymbals sounded so beautiful!  I learned I do not have a good enough ear to play timpani and that my broken right index finger severely hampered the way I hold a drumstick.  Or, as I routinely tell people, I am not a drummer; I am a percussionist who can drum a little.

But in the band I had also become enamored of saxophones, because they just sound so cool.  Jeff, one of the tenor sax players, recommended that I start with flute, then work on clarinet, and finally move to sax.  So I started using my tuition remission for those lessons.  I think I took two years of flute (with Gary Anderson) and then two or three of clarinet (with Yehuda Gilad).  Sadly, I never did take up saxophone.  But my fifth year in the band I played clarinet (and learned, after stabbing all the way through my left thumb with an Exacto knife, that there are exactly seven notes you can play on a clarinet without using your left thumb).

Something else I used my tuition remission for was voice lessons.  I sang with groups, I sang solo, I did recitals, I sang anytime I could.  I still love singing.  I participated twice in Songfest, a big student group singing competition.  Both times the group with which I sang placed.  I think I still have the music from both.

A friend of the teacher in one of my group vocal arts classes came around to recruit people to help fill out a new choir she was hired to create in a local church.  I think it was in Hollywood.  As is common with this type of activity, the number of men volunteering were far outnumbered by the women.  I ended up being a bass soloist for the Christmas concert.  Unfortunately, one of my voice instructors tried to make me a mezzo soprano, and I lost two octaves at the bottom of my range, so I can't do that now.

I played in the USC Community Orchestra as a percussionist for several years.  General percussion, no drums.

Oh, and one semester I took a guitar class.  I actually cut my fingernails and made the effort.  I discovered that chords did not make sense in my head.  I was the only student in the class who preferred to pick out melodies.  And then I decided I liked my fingernails more than the guitar.

Eventually I left Los Angeles and moved 400 miles north to Berkeley, where I had an entirely different musical routine.  But I think I'll save that for next year's World Music Day.

I got a little carried away, didn't I?  But music makes me happy.  Let's see, what other questions did Randy ask?  Well, favorite music type — hmm, I suppose "E, all of the above" is probably not a helpful answer.  I really do like almost everything, but if I have to pick favorites, probably show tunes and country.

And the last question was favorite songs.  Wow, that's even harder.  Anything I know the lyrics to and can sing along with ranks high.  "Danny Boy", because that was one of my mother's favorites.  "Sixteen Tons" is probably my favorite of the songs my father used to sing.  "Even Now" always makes me cry.  "Light One Candle", even after all the revelations about Peter Yarrow.  "Do You Hear What I Hear?", even though one of the most well known versions is by Robert Goulet.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Celebrate Mother's Day and Show Us Some Photos

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, so it was to be expected that Randy Seaver would have that as the focus for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.  (Today's topic revisits the same one from 2018, with updated social media links.)

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music), is:

1.  Sunday, 11 May, is Mother's Day in the USA.  Let's celebrate it by showing some of our photos with our mothers.

2.  Extra credit:  What did you call your mother during her life?  What did your children call your mother?

3.  More extra credit:  Have you written a biography or tribute to your mother?  If so, please share a link if you have one.

4.  Share your photo(s) on your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, or BlueSky post.  Leave a link on this blog post to help us find your mom photos.

1.  I remember that the last time Randy challenged us to share photos of ourselves with our mothers, I could only find a couple.  Since having received the photo bonanza from my sister, however, I have many, many more!  Here's a small selection.

This is the earliest photograph I have found of myself.  The photo was developed in October 1962, and I was born in April, so the oldest I can be is 6 months.  The shadow on the skirt of my mother's dress has to be the head of my father, the person likely taking the photo.

I've estimated I'm about a year old in this photo, so it's probably from 1963.  I was told by my cousin Beth (who is in a different photo with me in the same location) that this is Disneyland.

I like the whimsical nature of this one, which had to have been taken by my father.  It's June 1964, and my mother seems to be pregnant, so the absolute latest the photo could have been taken is June 16, and then only if she gave birth to my sister Stacy later on the same day.  This photo might have been taken in La Puente; I'll ask my sister Laurie if she recognizes the house.

This photo was taken in June 1969, when my mother took all three of us kids to Florida for our cousin Gail's wedding.  From left to right we are my brother, Mark; our mother, Myra; me; and my sister, Stacy.  My brother looks miserable for some reason.  I look happy, though.

This photo was developed in June 1973 and was taken at the trailer park where my family lived in Niceville, Florida.  I believe, from left to right going into the trailer, it is me, Mark, Stacy, and our mother.  I'm pretty sure my father took this photo, but I can't imagine why.

This is me and my mother standing on the porch of my Aunt Dottie's house in Niceville.  I'm about 16, so it's roughly 1978.  We're obviously dressed up to go somewhere (I remember that dress!), but I don't remember this at all, so I don't know what the occasion is or why we were having our photo taken at my aunt's.  I'm going to be asking my brother, my sister, and my stepfather what they recall.  If my aunt were still alive, I'd ask her also.

I find it interesting that the three photos I'm pretty sure my father took are black and white.  That means he probably developed them himself at home.

2.  I called my mother Mommy her entire life.  My stepsons never met my mother, as she died young.

3.  I have written a tribute to my mother, as a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post in 2017.  I have also written about her many times for Mother's Day separately from SNGF posts.

The Second Tuesday of Next Week

The International
Date Line

While I was growing up, my mother was known for using interesting turns of phrase.  She would talk about the "oneth of the month" (the first day of the month).  She and my father both used Spoonerisms deliberately, so we saved Chublip Stamps instead of Blue Chip Stamps and ate chotato pips instead of everyday potato chips.  One of my favorites, though, was my mother threatening to knock us into the second Tuesday of next week when we were being, um, precocious.  But, of course, there is no second Tuesday of the week.

Until there was!

When my family moved to Australia in 1971, we flew on a Pan Am 747 and crossed over the International Date Line.  When we did that, the day we lost was a Tuesday.

When we returned to the United States in 1973, we took a Greek cruise ship, and of course we had to cross the International Date Line again.  On that trip across the date line, we happened to repeat a Tuesday.  So not only did we make up for the Tuesday we lost, we finally had the second Tuesday of next week!

And yes, we gave my mother a bunch of crap about all the times she had said that to us.  She had somehow finally succeeded in knocking us into the second Tuesday of next week.

Unfortunately, my parents have both passed away, and neither my brother nor I remember the specific Tuesday we repeated.  But we know we came back in March, and the Tuesdays in March 1973 were 6, 13, 20, and 27.  So I picked today to write about it.

And I am pretty sure my mother would love the fact that I still remember.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Five Fun or Different Facts

I knew when I read the subject for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun that it sounded familiar.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  We all find fun or different information about ourselves, our relatives, and our ancestors in our genealogy and family history pursuits.  What are five fun or different facts in your life or your ancestors' lives?

2.  Tell us about your five fun or different facts in a comment on this post or in a Facebook post.   Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Jacquie Schattner for suggesting this topic last year.]

I'm glad I looked at last year's post on this subject, because the first thing that came to my mind to write about was something I wrote about last year!  But here's a new group of fun and different facts about me and my family members.

• My father played the part of Captain John Landry in a Sanford (Florida) Theatre Guild production of Petticoat Fever in May 1954.  (In the 1936 movie, that part was played by George Hassell.)  I know my father finished high school in Sanford, but I don't know if the guild was connected to his school or was an independent group.  The newspaper review (to the left) calls it a "local amateur group", so I'm leaning toward it being separate from the school.

• My mother liked to name our cats with different names for the Devil and similar creatures.  We had Beelzebub, Demon, Diablo (Spanish for devil), Lucifer, and Shaitan (which she told us was Hebrew for the Devil, but which Wikipedia identifies as an evil spirit in Islam), among others.

• My sister Laurie has gotten big into dragon boat racing and competes internationally.

• My uncle Marty was stationed with the U.S. Air Force in Alaska during the Good Friday earthquake in 1964.  When I asked him what he remembered about the quake, all he could come up with is that they had to help clean stuff up in Anchorage.

• The only F I have ever gotten in my academic career came in physical education when my teacher (may she forever be cursed) failed me because she thought I was faking it when I couldn't do a cartwheel.

Turkish Coffee with No Sugar???

Today is January 30, which on the Jewish calendar was 1 Shevat (I say "was" because I'm writing this after sundown, which means it's now 2 Shevat; I had a busy day).  And 1 Shevat is my mother's yahrzeit and the day I've chosen to write about my memories of her on my blog.

Even though it's rather late in the day at this point, I was thinking about coffee, which was one of my mother's favorite things to drink.  She always had to start her day with at least one cup of coffee, and she would drink it throughout the day also.

And that coffee was always strong and black.  She never added anything to her coffee — no sugar, no cream, no nothin'.  Just plain black coffee.

Well, sure, I hear you saying, there's nothing special about that.  Lots of people like black coffee.

But do lots of people like their Turkish coffee that way?

See, my mother didn't even like sugar in her Turkish coffee, which I've always heard is the traditional way to drink it.  Because Turkish coffee is really, really strong.  The kind where people joke it's only strong enough when the spoon stands up on its own in the cup.

Nope, no sugar in that either.  Just plain and black, please.

Now that's a woman who really liked her coffee.

My mother and I talked about coffee only once that I can recall.  It was after I had started college.  I was probably visiting for the holidays.  I think she was drinking a cup of coffee and offered me one.  I told her I didn't like coffee.  She was surprised and said that she used to drink a lot of coffee when she was in college and cramming for her exams.  I remember telling her that was the difference — I didn't have to cram for my exams.  She never asked me about coffee again.

I still don't like coffee.  My idea of the perfect cup of coffee is you take a big mug, pour a packet of instant hot chocolate into the bottom, add two spoonfuls of sugar, fill it about one third of the way with coffee, stir it up really well, and then fill the rest of the mug with half and half or whole milk.  Yes, I know that coffee drinkers sneer at me.  But I think of it as kind of like starting the day with a milkshake.

Turkish coffee image by Engin Akyurt and used under the Pixabay Content License.

Wordless Wednesdays

 

Researching Some Family Photographs

I have written about the digital photo bonanza that I received from my sister and how I have been trying to identify as many of the photos as I can.  I've posted some of them on my blog and asked other family members for assistance in filling in details.  We haven't been doing very well.

One of the photos that has been discussed is this one of my mother standing in front of a red car.

Some of the questions:  What kind of car is that?  (My brother commented that the details on the car are blurry, but that's how the scan looks.  My sister has not weighed in with any comments based on the original.)  Was it my family's car?  Where was this photo taken?  California?  Nevada?  Where are the three of us kids?  (My aunt insisted she can see us in the back seat, but I'm not buying it.)

I went back through the photo scans and discovered three more dated Apr 70 that seem to have been taken around the same time.

My father (photo apparently taken by my mother)

My mother (same clothes), my brother, and the same car

My mother (different clothes) staring off into the distance

After some diligent and focused online searches, the car has now been identified as a 1970 Toyota Crown Station Wagon.  It helped that my father told me in 2017 that we had a 1970 Toyota Station Wagon at one point, but the clincher was finding a press photo from when the 1970 Crown was released.  The details match the car in the first photo exactly.

Of course, some questions remain.  Where were the photos taken?  The picnic table makes it look like some sort of campground.  I remember that we used to go camping occasionally, but I remember almost nothing about the places we went.

Why do my sister and I not appear in the photos?  Are there additional photos from this trip that I haven't run across yet in the files that were sent to me where we do show up?

And since when did my family own a new car?

But I think great progress has been made.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Scars Are Part of Your History and Therefore Your Story

Today is one of those more unusual commemorations:  National Scar Appreciation Day.  It was started in either 2018 or 2019 (information provided differs) by someone named Justine Faeth.  This may or may not be the same person by that name who is an author listed on Amazon with a book titled Chat Love, and/or the Lady Justine Faeth who is on Twitter/X.  It certainly doesn't seem to be a common name.  The pages I found announcing National Scar Appreciation Day didn't say why she started it.

The gist of the day is that instead of just trying to hide our scars, we should acknowledge them for the evidence they show of the struggles we have been through and the fact that we have survived.  Each scar tells a different story from your life, whether an accident, surgery, or whatever, and that you are still here to remember it.  I have a lot of those scars, and they do help tell the story of my life.

Except sometimes there are scars you don't remember the origin of.

I have one of those.  A sizeable scar, about an inch long, on my left forearm.  It's been there as long as I can remember, ever since I was a very young girl.

I remember asking my mother about the scar and how I got it.  And she said, "I don't remember."

I accepted that for years, because I believed my mother.  Until recently, when it dawned on me that there is no way that my mother, who became hysterical at the slightest sight of her children's blood, could possibly have forgotten an incident that gave me a scar so pronounced that it has been with me for just about all of my 62 years.  Because whatever caused this scar, it had to have bled.  It looks like a pretty severe cut.

Which then leads me to wonder, what could have caused that injury that my mother wouldn't want to tell me about it?  Was it something she did?  I don't think it would have been deliberate, but some kind of accident?  Did I fall and cut myself while she had turned her head momentarily?  Did she drop something that hit me?

She's been gone almost 30 years, so I'm not getting the answer from her.  I never thought to ask my father about it, and he's gone now also, for five years.

There are still a few people around who might know:  my sister, my brother, my aunt.  So I'm going to ask them, before I forget or can't.  Because it's very frustrating when you don't know all of your own story.

Have You Ever Baked an Angel Food Cake?

Today is National Angel Food Cake Day!  What, you haven't heard of it?  No, really, I don't make these things up.  See, it's right here and here.

I decided to post for the day because way back when I was just 7 or 8 years old, I made an angel food cake from scratch, and it turned out perfectly.

I don't remember why I wanted to make an angel food cake.  My best guess is that I fixated on the word "angel", but it's just a guess.  At this point, all I remember is that I wanted to make it.

My mother was generally very supportive when one of us kids wanted to do something, and this time was no different.  I don't recall if I needed her to help, but I don't think so, because, well, she wasn't very domestically inclined to begin with, and I can't think of a single time she baked any cakes herself.  But she may have helped me read the recipe instructions and figure out what they meant.

I definitely don't remember how I whipped the eggs.  There's no way I did that by hand.  Maybe we had a hand mixer.

So there are many details I don't recall.  But I do remember that it turned out as it was supposed to, and everyone liked it.

And then my mother told me how difficult it was to make an angel food cake and have it turn out right.

So I decided to rest on my laurels and didn't try to make one again for about 20 years.  And then I did it from a mix.