those nice bright colors
greens of summers, makes you think
world’s a sunny day
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
Give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
From the Paul Simon song, 1973, Kodachrome.
My Dad had a Nikon camera.
The Nikon F series was introduced in the early 1960’s and my Dad had to have one as he got all the new gadgets (including a Heathkit color TV that he built in the basement – it only took a soldiering gun and about 7 months of work).
That Nikon F series was a great camera and really didn’t get left behind until the digital era and it became one the best selling camera’s of all time.
With that camera, my Dad took a lot of pictures or slides as they were called back then.
A few years back one of my Nephew’s digitized all of my Dad’s slides and sent me the files.
Looking through all those photos I came across some snaps my Dad took of our family Labor Day picnic in, what I am thinking was, 1963, but thanks to a note from my cousin, it is 1964.
At least I am hoping it was Labor Day but it could have been the 4th of July.
I could write my Nephew and see if he still has the physical slides and can check the date stamped on the cardboard frame but then I might find out that they aren’t Labor Day and it mess up the writing of this post.
We were the Hoffman’s.
My Dad’s sister had married a Glerum.
And my Mom was a Hendrickson.
My Dad’s snaps show all of us, Hoffman’s, Hendrickson’s and Glerum’s (and it that a Lower in there as well?) gathered together at my family’s Lake Michigan cottage.
It has to be soon after my Dad bought the place as there is no deck yet in front of the place.
All the kids and all the Aunts and Uncles are all gathered in the small yard and short deck that was there in just our first summer.
After that, my Dad added more decks and rooms and then over the years as the Lake moved east, removed those decks and rooms until finally the place had to be moved back away from the lake and almost rebuilt.
We called it the cottage.
It was roughing it as much as my Dad wanted to rough it which meant there was only a stand up shower.
I look at the pictures and I see the all the nice bright colors and greens of summer and I can remember it all.
I can taste the food in the picnic dinner my Mom and my Aunt’s spread out.
It wasn’t so much a family get together as it was mob.
It wasn’t so much of talking and conversation as it was BUZZ and LOUD.
It wasn’t so much a relaxing day at the beach but a day of constant activity
There was something somewhere going on constantly.
Smell the sweet piney smell of the forest around the cottage and feel the spiky-ness of the sparse grass?
I can.
I was three, if the timing on all this works out, maybe 4, I’ll have to ask my brothers and sisters about this pictures.
For the next 20 years, 4th of July and Labor Day meant that everyone was coming to the Lake.
We would wake up early, too excited to sleep and at some point, we would walk down the two track to the road so we could see the cars first and run back yelling THEY’RE HERE, THEY’RE HERE!!
Our Grandparents would arrive and unpack their car and we would carry in various pots and dishes covered with newspaper and tied with string.
The main meal would be thick slices of ham on hamburg buns or something like that and the evening meal would be leftovers with focus being a big pot of my Grandma’s Chili or her hamburger, corn, noodles and tomato hot dish that we called goulash.
All the Aunt’s would bring a hot dish of beans or potatoes along with all sorts of salads.
One of my brothers said to me you know you are getting old when that three bean salad starts looking good.
Then there were the deserts.
My Aunt Wanda’s sweet rolls, which I remember would disappear before desert time as me and my cousins would dare each other to sneak into the kitchen and grab one.
Cakes, and brownies … and pie.
My Mom was known for her pie.
Blueberry, cherry and rhubard.
Blueberries that were purchased from roadside stands on the way from Grand Rapids.
Rhubarb from the Glerum’s garden.
My Uncle Bud Glerum could grow more stuff from less land than anyone we knew and we always shared in the bounty.
It may have been at one of these Labor Day parties that my Grandpa finished a big piece of my Mom’s pie and announced, “Lorraine makes the best pie.”
Family tradition has it that it was long, silent drive home that holiday for my grandparents.
Labor Day.
It was the end of the summer.
It was the real end of the year.
The real new year, not that one in January, would start in a week or so when school started.
Summers were long for us kids.
We got off in June and we knew that July and August were OFF.
And our summer ended on the exclamation point of Labor Day.
All the world was a sunny day.
No Haiku For You 