Yesterday was the anniversary of the taking of this photo, snapped from the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. It shows Earth and its moon – the first photograph ever taken with both in the same frame.
Imagine, these two celestial bodies, linked forever in a gravitational embrace, but never photographed side-by-side.
That is, unless you count that time they went clowning around in the photo booth at Dayton’s Arcade in downtown Minneapolis.
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. They’d been orbiting Block “E” for much of the day, feeling tired and a little goofy, when some people came out of the booth laughing. Earth happened to have a couple of quarters in her pocket, and she thought, ‘why not’?
There’s something about that photo booth environment that makes the pictures taken there more memorable than most of those high-buck, carefully posed portraits.
Maybe it’s the built-in incentive to mug for the camera. After all, you gave up your pocket change for this and the shutter is going to click whether you’re ready or not, so you might as well do something to make it look like you’re having fun!
The Voyager photo cost more – lots more. Bazillions. And it is an amazing, historic image. But there is an icy distance to it that simply couldn’t exist in the close confines of the photo booth. If it’s a buddy picture you want, something full of warmth and fun, the photo booth is where you want to be.
Describe a favorite photo of you with a friend or a relative – where was it taken and how did it come about?
My brother, his wife and their two snotty kids are coming to stay with us for the weekend and maybe longer – refugees from their home in lower Manhattan.
They never miss an opportunity to tell us how wonderful and cosmopolitan it is to live in the heart of one of the world’s biggest cities, about all the restaurants they have down there, the transit, the music, the pulse and the pace and the privileges of having everything close at hand.
Wherever we like to go, they’ve been someplace nicer. Whatever we prefer to eat, they’re used to something better. However we decide to entertain ourselves, they’ve seen, heard or done something more interesting.
But now they and at least 369,999 others have been ordered to evacuate from low-lying areas of New York City. The transit system will shut down, and they’re coming to live with us in New Jersey.
Oh, and by the way, the storm is coming here too.
They say the system is so massive and full of moisture that the greatest danger will be from flooding. And it is possible that the wind will push over trees that can’t stand upright in the sodden ground, taking down power lines and causing widespread blackouts.
What’s worse, all the major league games have been cancelled.
Great. My brother’s family in the house, and we can’t even ignore each other by watching sports on TV. I’ll have to sit there and see their ugly mugs in high-def AND 3-D!
Dr. Babooner, I know I don’t have a choice because they’re family and they’ve been forced out of their home, but how can I survive the triple stresses of these obnoxious visitors, a hurricane AND a blackout?
Storm Victim
First off, Dr. Babooner doesn’t appreciate “ugly mug” references. Take a good look at Dr. Babooner herself! I’ve made my portrait unusually large today to mirror the size and intensity of Hurricane Irene. I believe you can grow to love any face, given time and a positive attitude. And a positive attitude is certainly lacking in this scenario. Storm Victim, you should try to look on the bright side of all the disruption, damage and despair that is about to descend on your extended family. Fallen trees and power outages are permanent memory-makers! Our typical day-to-day dealings quickly fade into the background and are eventually forgotten. Even people who are accustomed to a higher-than-usual lifestyle come to find the luxurious details of their lives rather dreary. By contrast, the weekend you are about to spend, staring at your brother and his family in the dim candlelight as an 80-mile per hour wind tries to tear the roof off your house, is one that you’ll never forget. Enhance the memories by creating keepsakes. Plan an art project everyone can work on – something that involves torn chunks of asphalt shingles, ceiling insulation and wax drippings!
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?
My Dad admired his brother Carl. Carl was a big man with a broad chest and a round face. He had a buzz cut and red cheeks and a voice full of gravel. He was quick to grin and rub your head or grab your shoulders. An impressionable kid would naturally want to be like Carl, so when Carl said he had a broad chest was because he slept without a pillow– I immediately threw out my pillow and slept without one for several years. Maybe it helped.
But there was a confusing detail about Uncle Carl. He married his aunt. Here’s how it happened:
Uncle Carl’s best friend was his uncle Maurice (Morrie). Morrie and his wife Helen had two kids; Maurice Jr. and Maureen.
Morrie Sr. told Carl that if anything happen to him, Carl should take care of Helen. This was in the late 1940’s and people did that sort of thing. And then Morrie Sr. was killed in a freak accident. He worked in the city bus garage in Rochester, MN and when the brakes failed on a bus and rolled down a hill into the garage it pinned him against the wall and killed him.
So Carl took care of Helen and eventually they married.
Adding to the confusion – Carl’s mother (my grandmother), was also named Helen.
Carl Jr. and Helen the widow were married about ten years before Helen died. Then Carl Jr. married a woman named Mic and they had two girls, Kelly (Kathleen) and Theresa.
(When I married my wife Kelly this made two ‘Kelly Hain’s and no end of confusion including one phone call from some guy who wanted Kelly to know he was back in town and maybe they could get together. Kelly and I were married at this point and listed together in the phonebook. Dunce cap for that guy. And then later, a woman who had done daycare for our kids for years randomly says out of the blue “You know, I have a cousin named Kelly Hain…” WHAT?? And of course she’s talking about the other Kelly Hain.)
Anyway, Mic had been married before and had one child, Sue. So now Carl and Mic have three step kids between them from two different Dads and two different Moms. What I remember most is how my Uncle Carl took all these kids into the family. The first two; Maurice Jr. and Maureen were cousins in the first place and they’re still at the family reunions. Mic’s Sue is around but not quite as much. And I remember Uncle Carl taking me fishing with Sue’s two boys when we were all teenagers.
A while back we’re at a funeral for one of my Dad’s other brothers, Richard. Richard’s first wife was Ann, who died back in the ‘80’s. My brother works with someone who told him Ann Hain was her Grandmother. Was it our Ann Hain, or a different one? We’re still not sure. My mom tries to explain who was married to whom, but then she has to correct herself and she says ‘No, it wasn’t them it was ____ …’ and at that point we’re all lost.
Which of your relatives is the most ‘interesting’?
I saw one of those plastic tips from the old ‘Tiparillo’ cigars lying on the ground the other day. It reminded me of my Dad as he smoked those for a time when I was a kid. He always said he spent more time chewing on those tips than actually smoking which is just as well.
My folks were a pretty good example of how to be married. I would hear them lying in bed at night talking and laughing. My wife had good examples of relationships too and we’re lucky that way. My Parents Joe and June grew up together. The story goes when they were infants both their Moms belonged to the same social group known as ‘The Mothers and Daughters Club’. At the monthly meetings Joe and June’s bassinettes would be put together behind the furnace at the town hall. Dad said he didn’t expect to date anyone but Mom and Mom grew up on a farm so she didn’t intend to be a farm wife. She says he had to work at it and in the end his twinkling eyes and Irish charm won her over.
Skip ahead about 60 years after they got married.
My Dad decided it was time to give up his job and therefore Mom said they only needed one car. Dad informed Mom he was NOT getting rid of his car. She was rather indignant about that “He didn’t even give me a chance! Who made HIM ruler of the roost!?” she said. My parents ‘fight’ in a rather humorous way… I asked if we should leave so they could work this out? Mom informed me it was already worked out because HE decided!
I was at their apartment with my son to pick up their now extra car because my son wanted a car with actual heat in the passenger compartment. (As compared to his old car that didn’t have heat. I told him having a car with no heat builds character. My first car didn’t have heat either and look how I turned out. Son thinks he has enough character for the moment.)
It was Moms car we drove home.
Mom has always had some spunk in her. When they were farming together Mom wasn’t afraid to inform Dad that his Universal Hand Signals left something to be desired and he could bale his own Damn hay. Among other things…
I only knew my paternal Grandpa and maternal Grandma. This was Grandpa’s farm before ours so he still had a garden out here when he was able. Built himself a little garden shed, cut his own hair – and boy did that freak me out when I saw it—and at the local mall played Santa Clause for a number of years and in 1976 played Uncle Sam.
It was his father that came to our current farm location in 1896. People ask how we got so far off the road and down in a valley but that’s where the water was. They settled next to the natural springs. Grandpa hauled sand from the creek banks to his garden plot so he could grow peanuts and watermelons.
My dad says his Dad didn’t like change and didn’t like to make improvements to the farm. Whenever my dad made a change his dad criticized it. And when they decided to tear down the old farmhouse they didn’t exactly tell Grandpa about it. He drove in about the time the old house was pulled down and I’m told he simply turned around, drove away and didn’t come back until he was invited for Thanksgiving dinner in the new house. Which he did admit was a nice house.
My maternal Grandpa died before I was born. Grandma called every night at 7:00 to talk to my mother and if I answered the phone there was a pause and a little laugh and then ‘Ben?’ Yes, Grandma, it’s me… she also told me not to eat candy cause I was gonna get fat and, in the 70’s when I was trying the ‘gold chain necklace look’, she saved me from myself by informing me that only girls wore necklaces.
One of my favorite memories of Grandma is riding in her car when I was a kid, stopping at an intersection and a couple boys about 10 yrs old on bikes had to stop as we blocked their path and one kid said ‘Aw ya dumb old lady….’ And Grandma laughed and waved and drove off. I think about that a lot; I think how well she handled that (we never talked about it so I’m not sure what she thought of it), but I think there was probably a good lesson in there for me as a 10 yr old. And as a future grandparent.
Grandma’s house was where we watched the fireworks on the fourth of July. All my cousins were there with watermelon and squirt guns in her back yard.
And her 1967 Plymouth Valiant was my first car.
Yep, driven by a little old lady.
What comes to mind when you think of your grandparents?
Welcome to a place where pine cones are medicine, a stick can be a baby bottle, a lily-of-the-valley is a fairy lamp with lots of little tiny lights.
I get to see my 8-year-old neighbor Lola each week for a couple of hours. She always has an idea for what we should do, and although we’ve done a couple of artsy projects (yes, she’s made a placemat from old greeting cards), the most fun has been pretend. And the best place for pretend seems to be out of doors.
I had almost forgotten about pretend. I did plenty of it both as a child, and when my child was young in the 80s. But that was long ago, so clearly I was a bit rusty. I found it’s a bit like riding a bike – you never really forget how. One person says something like “This stone can be the fairies’ doorstep”, and suddenly you find yourself saying “I know some seashells that can be more steps – I’ll go get them!”
When one of those last snowstorms surprised us, Lola and I converted the woodpile-snowdrift into a Fairytown, where the overturned shells became stepping stones, and later (not overturned) for fairy dishes. A hollow log was a safe haven for squirrels and chipmunks and other critters. Once it got warmer, Husband helped us build a Fairy House from some scrap wood pieces and an old squirrel feeder.
Our favorite game to date has been Ambulance. Lola created a doll hospital in a pine tree’s low branches, with hammock style beds she fashioned from tablecloths. She had brought three dolls with her that day, and the wheel barrow was enlisted as The Ambulance.
With the use of both my cordless and cell phones, I was able to call Lola the Ambulance Driver and tell her what street to zip over to (streets were named by what they were near: Garden Lane, Brick Lane, Shovel Lane…). She whisked an injured baby to The Hospital, where there were five available rooms named by the type of injury they housed: Broken Left Leg, Broken Right Leg, Broken Left Arm, Broken Right Arm, and Anything Else!
There was even a waiting room for me, the anxious mother – the garden bench out front over by Brick Lane. All babies/toddlers were successfully treated and given pinecone medicines, and returned by the Ambulance to their homes.
Do you have anyone in your current life with whom you can pretend?
If not, try it here: What would be the prominent features of your imaginary town?
My dad didn’t go to law school until I was born so didn’t settle into his career until a little later in my life. One of the results of this was that we moved around a lot when I was a kid. This meant I was ALWAYS the new kid on the block and I struggled to find friends and fit in.
When I was five, we lived on West Cedar in Webster Groves, Missouri for about a year. It was a great old house on a tree-lined street and as a family, we went through quite a bit in that house. My younger sister had her open-heart surgery when we lived there. My mother survived scarlet fever in this house and I learned to ride a bike on the street in front.
But my favorite memory of living on that block was being befriended by the little boy who lived across the street. His parents had welcomed us to the neighborhood early on; his name was Bobby and he was a year older than I was. There weren’t any other kids on our block that summer (except my sister who was too sick to play outside with us) and this was back in the day when you made do in your neighborhood. You just didn’t get driven around by your parents for play dates back then.
Bobby had a huge collection (or so it seemed to me at the time) of matchbox cars, all different shapes and colors, that he kept in a big shoe box. He knew all the names of the different makes of cars and could tell you when he got each one. He could play with those cars for hours and he invited me to join in his adventures. He did have a little track for the cars in the house but the hands-down best place to play was around the base of the big tree in front of his house. You know the kind of tree I mean – one of those trees with the root systems jutting out of the ground and winding all around. It was the perfect setting for all our matchbox action. We drove the cars all around, up and down the various roots and even placed popsicle sticks across some of the roots to make carports and caves. We had quite a few different scenarios to play out, but it seems that many of our games were spy games, with one spy chasing another all around the tree, in and out of our little caves. It never seemed to bother Bobby that I was a girl and I don’t remember our folks worrying about how much time we spent playing with those cars that summer. My family moved away that fall, but that summer of the matchbox tree still remains as a sweet childhood memory for me.
What childhood game brings back good memories for you?
Now that it’s finally beginning to warm up, it’s wonderful to get out and examine the post-winter landscape. Congratulations! You made it through the dreary season, so now it’s time to daydream – consider changing everything by upgrading your abode! The economy is beginning to gain some momentum and attractive homes are flooding the market. On a walk yesterday, I saw several on display right here in my neighborhood!
Home #333
Wait til you see the back yard!
This warm and cozy split level built into a south facing hillside is surrounded by lush cooling grasses during the hottest part of summer, but in springtime its graceful rounded profile reaches out to capture the sun’s warming rays, providing a beautiful elevated view of the nearby shrubs as they come into bloom. Every family member will want to poke his or her head out the front door to welcome visitors and/or sound a warning about intruders. This earthy charmer is move-in ready!
Home #838
Just a hop from all the action!
Fantastic curb appeal is just one of the attractions of this roomy single level home, and wait until you see the rooftop deck! Note the detailed craftsmanship of the tooth-carved entryway, which opens into an expansive wind-protected too-tight-for-the-dog-to-get-in living area. Generous upstairs neighbors occasionally have lavish food-dropping parties, providing a delicious rain delivered right to your main living area! This family home has sheltered 5 generations of hearty rabbits, and that’s just in the past year.
Home #83
Best of both worlds!
This stunning penthouse apartment has been extensively remodeled to work more comfortably as a single level walk out. No more climbing with your arms (and cheeks) loaded full of groceries! Live close to the earth with an easily accessed garden and quick emergency egress. It’s the best possible combination of the breezy treetop lifestyle everyone wants with the solid grounded foundation that everyone needs!
Wow! All these places look better (and cheaper) than the place I’m in! Still, moving is a huge project, and I’m afraid I might suffer from buyer’s remorse (especially with home #83)! Maybe I wouldn’t be so interested in a change if I just vacuumed the space I’ve got and re-arranged the furniture I already have.
When has the grass only seemed greener on the other side?
Many thanks to those who sent kind words and condolences on the death of my mother, who passed away on February 2nd. She was a good person who enjoyed simple things. My mom loved to laugh, and she was a bit unconventional. She anchored our little family, cared for her friends and did her best to create some fun in the world.
The daughter of a New York stockbroker, there was a bit of money and status in her family. Her grandfather was a preacher who died young. Her great-grandfather was an officer and gatekeeper for a society of Mayflower Descendants. There was a moral code and a distinguished lineage to uphold. For women born into such families in the late 1920’s, the expectation was that they would marry well and play their role.
Mom came of age just as WWII ended. A friend at work had a brother who had dropped out of high school and had just completed an uncomfortable stint in the Navy – a character clearly from the other side of the tracks. Mom’s parents were not thrilled, but she married him anyway. Her mother’s disapproval faded as she discovered this polite new son-in-law folded his handkerchief carefully and was very, very handy around the house. Stuff got fixed, and small things like that matter.
Mom stayed at home while my brother and I were growing. She dyed her hair blonde and smoked, like a lot of women did in the 1950’s. We accompanied her and watched while she did all the Eisenhower era housewife/mother tasks – laundry; cleaning; feeding us meat loaf and mashed potatoes; being the chaperone on school trips; doing funny, silly, crafty things.
She became a scavenger. We would make the rounds of local bowling alleys to gather up discards from the piles of debris in back. With paint and cloth and patience, she could turn a cracked bowling pin into a wacky character – a debutante in her frilly dress or a mustachioed singer in a barbershop quartet. Kitschy? Without a doubt. But there was no embarrassment. It was inexpensive, creative fun. My mom was the sort of person who did uncomplicated things like that. She loved plants and gardens and feeding the birds and sitting outside.
She went into an extended stuffed animal phase and produced a large number of plush critters to sell at craft fairs for not quite enough money to make a profit. In between fairs she was always ready to sew a bear for a new baby. Many of these teddies (and dogs and rabbits) were handmade and embroidered with the child’s name and birth date. It makes me happy to think that these are still out in the world, even if they’ve been placed under beds or pushed to the back of closets. It’s the memories they made along the way that matter most.
In the ‘70’s she worked in the cashier window at Sears, at a time when department stores had a separate, secure place where you could go to pay your bills. Because the job involved handling a lot of money, she worked behind a daunting pane of glass in a fairly humorless setting. To inject a little levity, she and her cashier friends would dress up for holidays and Halloween – poodles, fairies, firecrackers. Nothing was too dumb.
Mom with my brother, Lee
Day-to-day she wore sweatshirts and blue jeans. If an activity required getting more dressed up than that, you had to ask yourself if it was worth the trouble. A fun outing was climbing on the lawn tractor to mow the side yard.
Mom was an animal lover who made room in her home for numerous pets, including two gigantic St. Bernards. The door was always open for neglected and desperate wanderers. She and my father welcomed several abandoned dogs and far too many stray cats. There was no question about this. It was simply what they did.
For the past three decades we lived 500 miles apart. She relished using the visiting grandmother’s prerogative to do whatever came into her head without regard for house rules or discipline. When Grandma Barbara came to visit, one of the first activities would be a festival of misbehavior called “The Sock Game.” It involved letting her grandson jump on the bed while both of them ate M&M’s and threw socks into the spinning ceiling fan. Nancy and I knew the ritual had begun when the crazy laughter started and an occasional sock would come sailing out the door.
Like I say, she was a fun-maker.
One of my earliest memories of my mother is a trip we took to an upstate New York lake in summer. I was very young and couldn’t swim, so the only way to get out to the area over my head was to hang on to her neck. As her feet bounced across the lake bottom, we moved towards the middle of the lake and I sensed the dangerous chill of the colder, deeper water all around. I was excited but not scared because I knew I was safe in her arms and felt completely surrounded by her warmth. “I’ve got you,” she said. And I knew she did.
My mom meant love and home and acceptance to me. That’s what every parent hopes to be for their child, which makes it no less of an achievement. It is common as a sweatshirt and as goofy as a bowling pin character, and it constitutes everything that is most important in the world. It’s a gift I was very lucky to receive.
Trail Baboon 