The Age of Camelot
Yesterday was the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I saw a few posts where people talked about what they were doing that day. When something that big happens in your lifetime, you tend to remember little details about it. What you were doing. Where you were. What you felt. How you reacted. And people have talked about the assassination as being the end of an era. They likened the years of Kennedy’s presidency with the Age of Camelot. There was even a musical at the time about the original Camelot – the age of King Arthur when truth, goodness, and beauty reigned. The memories of those times have been idealized through the years. The same could be said for my memory of 1963.
As you can see, I was just a child. This was a few months before the assassination of Kennedy, but it shows what our family looked like in that era. I was only two and a half, but I have lots of memories from that time. Riding the tricycle on the ‘sidewalk.’ Swinging on the front porch swing. Catching fireflies at night. Playing cowboys and indians.
Of course most of this was done with my brothers and sisters. They were my whole world. That world also included my parents and grandparents and uncles and cousins. It was an idyllic time for me. I didn’t have to go to school. I had no cares in the world. So when that shot rang out from the grassy knoll … Wait, this is not the time to discuss conspiracy theories, sorry about that. So when that shot rang out from the rifle of Lee Harvey Oswald, my life as I knew it ended.
No, not really. Even though I can remember chasing bees, picking figs, and peeking into the old barn, I don’t remember that infamous day in November of that year. I was three by then, so I thought I was growing up. But I was still a kid who wore shorts to church. (I remember wanting to wear long pants like the men did.) So I was probably just too busy playing with my siblings and wondering what I was going to be getting for Christmas. You know, the usual things little boys think about.
Nov. 27, 2016 – Followup to Throwback Thursday.
I’ve posted a few more photos from the Camelot era of my Bucklin cousins.
I thought they probably had copies of those prints, but from the feedback, I don’t think they did. They are some really good photos. Then I posted a poor quality photo of a group shot that was taken on the same day. All I have is a scan that I’ve had for a long time. Hopefully someone has a good print of the photo and they will scan it or take a photo of it and share it with us.
Then I started dusting and came across a small framed print I have of those cousins on the same day. I noticed that Rhonda was not cut out of that one, so I thought I’d scan it so I’d have everyone in the photo. I brought the print to my computer and scanned it. Then when I compared it to the digital copy I already had on the computer – Surprise! – it’s actually a different photo than the other one I had. For all this time I thought the photo on my computer and the framed print were of the same photo.
I was starting to think that it might be better to actually scan the negative of the photo. I had photographed those old Polaroids with color film back when I got my first SLR camera in high school. So I went searching for those old negatives of the old photos. I went through everything I could think of and couldn’t find them. I’m not too disappointed, though, because I’m sure I have them somewhere.
But even better than that reassurance was the fact that I found something even better! In addition to taking color photos of those old Polaroids, I evidently took some black and white photos of even older photos! I say evidently, because I don’t remember taking the photos and some of the photos do not look familiar to me at all. But I can recognize some faces and some of them are identified on the back. That’s why you identify people in photos. So other people will know who they are and for later when you’re an old fart and can’t even remember taking the photos in the first place!!!
I’ve been thinking about doing another story about my great great grandfather who was in the Civil War and was a witness to the Lincoln assassination, and I was thinking about using a photo that I had used before. I only had one photo of him to start out with, then I got a second one when I contacted a DNA match along the Phenice line. I found two more photos of him! And I’ve had them all along. I also found a few photos of Daisy Keys and a picture of Grandma as a young child. These photos were probably Grandma’s that I borrowed so I could take photos of them.
Thank you young Van from the bottom of my heart!
















