Long Ago and Far Away..

If Joe can do it, so can I!
Post old pictures, that is. The past can be quite fascinating.. case in point:

This is my sister and me, circa 1981 or 82.. possibly even 1983, I'm not sure. I am sure that we both began our caffeine addictions early, since every picture from this particular vacation to Florida shows us sucking down some sort of cola. Note the Holiday Inn in the background. We thought we were the sh!t because we were staying in the HI. Also note that our mamma dressed us really funny, even for early 80's standards.

Or how about this one? We're a little older here, playing with puppies in front of the old barbecue pit at our grandparents' house. The pit could have been pretty cool, if it hadn't always been full of leaves and garbage and clippings from grandmother's plants. They burned the trash in it instead of actually using it for barbecue. Note my sister's groovy shoes. And giant glasses. Note also that she is violently allergic to anything with fur.. except mink, apparently. ;)

Our final specimen for this evening involves what is quite possibly the strangest family portrait ever made. Dad looks quite dapper in his suit and sweater, and absurdly young. Mom looks like.. Mom. Puffy hair, chicken-neck collar (God forbid any skin be showing. I think my mother would have loved it if burqas had been popular in 1980s North Carolina). She was almost horrifically modest. And she dressed us funny.

My sister is obviously already planning her escape. Either that or the Elizabethan ruff she's been stuffed into is choking her and she's already gone delirious. I'm the one in red, whose hair is parted and yanked back so severely that she looks Chinese. Well, a blonde, gap-toothed Chinese then. In a Peter Pan collar.

That red dress had a bell sewn into the hem. I remember trying to walk so that it would "twinkle twinkle" everywhere I went. I imagine that this was profoundly irritating to everyone who had the misfortune to be in the room with me, but then that was usually the case anyway, so what difference would one little bell make?

Ohhh, yeah. And I have more where that came from.