We Eat Fish

My niece Sarah posted a photo earlier this week on Instagram from her visit to the Houston Zoo.  When I was thinking of what to post this week, her photo reminded me of something from my own past.

When I was young, our family would go on summer vacation every year.  Nothing too extravagant, but we had fun.  Her photo reminded me of one time when we went to the zoo.  I was thinking it might have been the Houston Zoo, because sometimes we would go to AstroWorld in Houston.

But this one particular photo stood out in my memory because the sign in front of us reads “WE EAT FISH.”  And we always thought that it looked like the sign was talking about us!  If you read the whole sign, you can see that it was talking about the seals that were in the enclosure that was between my dad taking the photo and us posing for the photo.

This photo was taken on July 22, 1969.  When I saw other photos taken on the same day (Thanks, Daddy, for writing that information for us all those years ago.), they were all taken at Six Flags Over Texas, which is in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area of Texas.  We would go to the zoo the next day, but it was the Ft. Worth Zoo.  We did end up in Houston a few days later, because I remember celebrating Al’s birthday at Uncle A. J.’s that summer.  (Much in the same way that I remembered this picture being at the zoo.  In other words, I could be mistaken!)

I always tend to explain who everyone is in the old photos that I post.  (This is not an old photo!)  But for the photos of my family I don’t usually do that.  This time I will.  Let’s start from the left side of the photo.  That’s my older brother Rob in the gold short sleeve turtle neck shirt.  I don’t know about you, but that sounds kind of uncomfortable for a hot Texas summer.  What was he thinking?  He was a 14-year-old young man getting ready to start his freshman year in high school at Jennings High School.

In the floral print blouse is my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  She was 36 years old at the time of the photo.  That’s so weird.  I remember thinking she was kinda old when I was a kid.  At least she was a bit older than some of my classmates’ parents.  Yet some people would ask if she was an older sibling.  All I can say is that I was a foolish child.  Continuing on…

Al is the one in the dark red shirt.  He would celebrate his 10th birthday two days later and in the fall he would be starting the fifth grade at Northside Junior High.  I’m pretty sure that back in those days they started at Northside in the fourth grade.  I didn’t start there until the sixth grade.  He might have started delivering the Jennings Daily News around this time as well.  He was the paper boy on Plaquemine and Nezpique streets during his junior high years.

Karen is the 12-year-old girl with the blue plaid short jumpsuit.  Is that what you call those things?  I googled it and I think it is called a romper.  I wonder if that’s what she called it back then?  I do know that it’s not surprising that she’s wearing blue.  It is and always has been her favorite color.  She would be getting ready to go to her seventh grade year at Northside.

And then there is me.  Little Van is standing there talking on the smart phone while everyone else is posing for the photo.  At least that’s what it looked like when I first looked at the photo.   But there is no phone in my hand!  I was 8 years old and wearing a gold shirt.  In the fall I would be going to the third grade at West End Elementary School.  My dad still insisted that Al and I have crew cuts at this time.  That continued for another year or so, though somehow Rob must have talked him into letting him grow his hair out like the Beatles.  He was such a rebel!

Jamie is the little 7-year-old girl in the red romper.  She would be going to the second grade at Central School in the fall.  She was still a shy little girl at this point.  She was not used to being around strangers and was reluctant to say anything around them.  If you know anything about Jamie now, you know this is not anywhere close to being true any more.

Jodie is somewhat in the shadows, but you can still see that she is wearing a blue shirt.  She was a 15 year old who would be a junior at Jennings High School in the fall.  She only lived another 20 years, so she didn’t make it to the age my mom was in this photo.  She really was a considerate person.  The only times I remember her getting mad were times when she would see someone else being treated unfairly.  It didn’t have to be anyone she knew, either.

One of the things I miss about her is her uncanny memory.  She would have been able to tell me what day of the week this was and what we did that morning.  Of course she may not have been telling me the truth when she would recite such things.  Not that she was dishonest, but she sure liked to tease.  I didn’t have Google back then to check up on those dates and days of the week, so I just believed her.  I guess I still do.

I thought I’d go ahead and post this other photo of the day we went to the Ft. Worth Zoo.  My mom took the photo, so you get to see my dad in this one.  You can also see that Karen is wearing another one of those rompers.  She must have been fond of them.

My dad’s name was Robert Joseph Landry, Jr. and he was 40 years old at this time.  He was the band and choral director at Northside at this time.  Even though we went on vacation during the summer, those summers back then will always be associated with the summer band programs that he had.  We’d get up early in the morning and all of us kids would go with Daddy to the old Northside gym.  In those old classrooms we’d sit and sing the songs my dad projected onto the screen with his overhead projector.  So many memories.

This post ended up longer than I had planned.  I meant to just talk about that old photo that made us laugh.  Actually the sign was pretty true – we do eat fish.  But we won’t bite your fingers!

Most of the time.