I have mentioned before that most of the photos of me as a child contained my dog, Pete. She was a cocker spaniel that my parents had gotten before I was born. When our family traveled cross-country from Maine to California in early 1945, Pete came along with us.
She was my guardian and faithful friend.
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| Always by my side |
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This is such an historical photo, documenting the times when people used the old wooden play pens
and still hung their laundry out to dry. |
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| I am looking up to where Pete is still on guard. Look at that groovy old stroller! |
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| Here we are with my dad and a neighbor girl named Laurie. All of these photos were taken at Hunter's Point in San Francisco. The housing there, strictly utilitarian, was built for shipyard workers during World War II and was pretty new when we lived there. It looks like they were just getting the landscaping going. |
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Pete loved me and I loved her
Pete was my first and best friend until the time I was ten years old. One day, while I was playing with her on the stairs of our house, she snapped at me. I couldn't understand why my friend would turn on me like that, and I cried and cried. It turned out that she was in great pain from cancerous tumors, the only reason that she would ever behave like that. She had to be "put to sleep"--the first time I had ever heard that phrase, and my first experience with death and grief and loss. |
I love this, Mom. It's sweet and sad and the pictures remind me of how the family pets always followed you around while I grew up. NOW, there are so many cats and dogs, it's like a traveling band marches around you, all lolling tongues and twitching tails!
ReplyDeleteQueste foto sono meravigliose.
ReplyDeleteAmo poterle guardare... visionare... studiare.
Il ritorno al passato è struggente !
Bellissime.
Grazie della visita :)
Buona giornata.
Your old photos are just so sweet. And you're right about the one with the wash hanging and the wooden playpen, it is definitely a moment of the life and times captured. I need to stop trying so hard at making my family shots "clutter free" ... I want my grandkids to remember what their childhoods were really like. So next time, no frantic clearing of the kitchen counter before I take birthday cake shots!
ReplyDeleteMy parents would not let me have a pet of any description,but I desperately wanted a dog,any dog.!
ReplyDeleteThere was a farm down the road to us with lots of puppies running around so I "rescued " one,I was 8yrs old at the time and told my parents that I had found it.I did not get to keep it,Dad took it to the rescue center.Later he learned that a pedigree puppy had been stolen from the above mentioned farmer-- O BOY did I get a walloping!!
Loved reading this post and agree with DEB,we do not take "time capsule" pictures any more and I think we should,for the next generation to see how we lived.
Have a nice weekend.