A Warm Summer Evening

I’m not really sure why I picked this photo.  The mood of it resonated with me somehow.  It’s not the clearest photo by far.  It was taken on July 5, 1967, in Jennings, Louisiana, at my childhood home.  That was the yellow house on Lucy Street with the number 758.  It wasn’t 758 Lucy Street until our family moved there in 1964.  The numbers weren’t on the house and the house on the left had a number in the 700s, while the house on the right had a number in the 800s.  So we just picked something in between.  And that’s what it is today.

Another thing about the house is that when we moved  into it, there was no air conditioning.  Even at the time that this photo was taken, we still didn’t have air conditioning.  We didn’t get that until around 1972.  I remember sleeping in the bed at night with the attic fan on.  It brought the “cool” evening air into the house.  I would sleep with my head on the window sill.  The breeze from the fan felt good.

But really!  It wasn’t that cool.  Everybody knows how hot it gets in southern Louisiana in July.  It doesn’t cool off after the sun goes down.  It’s not as hot, but it’s still pretty warm.  That’s one of the things this photo reminds me of.  It looks like we were just finishing up with dinner.  And everyone knows what happened at the Landry household on July 5th after dinner time.  Right?  Of course!  It was time to put candles on Jamie’s birthday cake and sing “Happy Birthday dear Jamie” to her.  She was five that year.  You can see her peeking from behind me in the photo.  If you know which one is me, that is.

I grew up in a family with six kids.  But if you happen to have counted how many are in this photo, you would know that there were a few extra.  Those two extras are our cousins Lynn and Toni.  They were the daughters of my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry’s older sister Sylvia Bucklin Pilcher.  That’s Aunt Sylvia to those of us in the family. She had five children of her own and they were all close to the same ages as us kids.  You can see Lynn in the very center of the photo.  She’s the one closest to the cameraman – most likely that was my dad (Robert Joseph “Bob” Landry, Jr.)  In the bottom left corner of the photo you can see her older sister Toni.  I suppose they were there visiting my sisters.  It happened from time to time.

Above Toni’s head, you can see Al looking across the sea of people.  Pay attention! Al!  We’re trying to take a picture here!  Oh, well.  He will forever be not listening.  Next in the circle is Rob.  He is paying attention and smiling for the photo.  Good job, Rob!  Next is my mom.  She is looking a little tired or distracted. She was a busy woman taking care of six young, growing kids.  I don’t know how she did that and managed to not look tired in most photos.  Maybe she was just wondering if we were ever going to get air conditioning!

Standing up in the back is my older sister Jodie.  She was the oldest and the leader of the pack.  By that I mean the six of us kids.  When I’ve met kids through the years, I notice how there is a connection they have with their siblings. One of them is clearly the leader.  And there is a closeness among them that is noticeable.  I’m sure we were like that.  I wasn’t really that aware of it when I was growing up.  We lost our leader when Jodie died in 1989.    In front of Jodie – and kinda behind me – is the birthday girl.  Jamie was kind of shy back then.  But not usually with family.  She looks like she did when there were strangers around.  She’d be lurking around behind one of us older siblings and not saying much.  That has changed. 

Like I said, I am in front of Jamie.  My name is Van.  I wasn’t much braver than Jamie was myself.  We were the two youngest.  I’m the blurriest one in the photo.  I look like I’m moving or something.  Maybe someone left a bit of food on their plate?  I shouldn’t give Al and my mom so much grief when I was definitely not paying attention to the cameraman.

And lastly we have Karen.  She was supposed to be my main focus for the blog today.  The second anniversary of her death is tomorrow and I wanted to commemorate it with a story.  I think she would have liked this story, though.  It’s about our family and good times we had together.  She doesn’t look particularly happy in this photo, but if she was upset about something I think we would have known about it.  If Karen didn’t like something or didn’t want to do something, it would take a lot of effort to get her to do it.  She didn’t like shots – who does – but she would fight with my mom to try to keep from getting one.  My mom was just trying to make sure she was okay, but Karen acted like she was trying to kill her!  She was like that for any sort of medical thing, though she outgrew that.

So there you have it.  A warm summer evening in Smalltown, USA.  Sure it’s warm, but five little candles won’t make much of a difference.  Cake, anyone?