Remember the fun you had as a kid? Playing with the neighborhood kids or cousins was your chief form of entertainment and exercise. We didn’t have to come indoors until the street lights came on. This was fantastic at my grandparents’ houses – they lived in the country where there were no street lights to come on and send us indoors for the evening. Both my grandparents had big farm bells to call folks in for dinner or supper….and perhaps a time of two it was used to round us ‘chaps’ up for the evening.
We played roll to the bat, hide & seek, red rover, marbles, and hopscotch. We rode our bikes, searched for tadpoles in the creek, but our favorite pastime was baseball. Our neighbor’s back yard was the place most of the kids in the neighborhood gathered to play. We liked to play baseball the most; however, there was one problem with playing in the neighbor’s yard – their next door neighbor, Mrs. Richardson! She and her sister lived there alone and it seemed that they didn’t like children at all. All was fun and games until someone hit a ball over the fence into Mrs. Richardson’s yard. She would come out, pick up the ball, give us a sneer and saunter back into her house with our baseball. As a child I wanted to grow up to be just like Mrs. Richardson – she had all the baseballs in the neighborhood!
I grew up in a small town in the 1950s and playing was still the best form or entertainment, until Television! Our first TV was black and white and could pull in several stations. I could even watch Fred Kirby on channel 3! A little known fact is that I was one of the first remote controls circa 1954. I laid on the floor in front of the TV and used my foot to change the channels for my dad. You can thank me later.
When I think of those times several things come to mind – Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, My Friend Flicka, Fred Kirby, Davy Crocket, The Rifleman, the Lone Ranger and my all-time favorite – The Little Rascals! This photograph had seen better days. It was wrinkled and beginning to lose its color fast. I chose to scan this image – the original was 8×10. I liked the way they used an old quilt for the backdrop.
If you choose to scan your images for safe keeping, here are a few hints. Scan images and papers at a high resolution 300-500 dpi. Put a piece of solid black mat board behind the image before scanning, that will deter any writing or imperfections that may be on the back of the image from being scanned through the page. You can store your images on a CD or a DVD; however, I recommend a thumb drive at this point in time. Remember to keep up with the times as far as digital storage goes. While you are making copies of your pictures, make several copies and store them in different locations in case something happens. It’s very hard to find someone who can transfer images from an old ‘floppy’ disc now.
While you are saving images also think about saving important items – like the serial number for your lawn mower, your guns, and your prized possessions. That way if you should need to identify your possessions you have a picture of it and also the identifying marks, serial numbers, etc.
