NEW YEAR – OLD MEMORIES

Recently I purchased a scanner to do 35 mm. slides. Slides that date back to the 60’s, covering things like parades, artwork, family and friends. Scanning in these old memories remind me of how simple life was back then, yet so complicated. I wanted to put everything on DVD before they completely fade away and I lose them.

There are few pictures that I own of myself since I was always behind the camera. The camera was complicated; it had a thing called film, Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Tri-X, depending on what you were shooting. Being how photography was part of my major, a great deal of time and money went into learning about it. You owned a light meter, tripod and even developing equipment, all part of the package.

A young skinny kid

My first job out of college landed me in Manhattan. Working for Lawrence G. Chait & Co., my first accounts were American Airlines, Lufthansa Airlines and P.H. Harnischfeger, an earth moving equipment-building company.  Boy was I excited! Sitting way up on the top floor of a skyscraper, corner office, (they loved me) and fancy lunches and dinners sometimes on the same day! My days were filled with being happy I was finished with college, the long harrowing experiences of getting to school, paying for it and attending classes, sometimes so hungry, I had headaches, but needing every penny to pay my way through. Not only tuition, but books, art supplies and photo equipment as well as train fare needed to be paid for. Dad had no money to give me, I had to do this all myself. So I went to work in my Dad’s plant and at night in Hill’s supermarket when the chance was available, and floated a school loan for the rest.

Some hot babe!

There were a lot of young ladies there, when I entered the new job, and being single and unattached, it was a wonderful hunting ground for a young guy to meet girls, or ladies as I started to call them. My boss was a great guy who let me fly by myself, meeting clients and making decisions. I bought my first car, and brand new Chevy Camaro, with bucket seats and all the things that made me feel cool.

Riding the trains to and from work, I met even more girls, and that is where I met TLW (The Little Woman)! But life was more than just girls and cars and work, it was freedom, and I was looking to find an apartment in Queens or Manhattan, to assert my independence further, and move out of my parent’s house. I was reading the apartments to let section of the NY Times and had circled a few places I would visit that weekend when I met this lady on the train that I took an interest in. For some reason, I decided to hold off after I made a date with her. I never looked at apartments!

My first paying freelance!

Of course there were other slides that I found, like my first paying job for someone. A children’s clothing company paid me a handsome fee to illustrate the store itself with a mural. I found old painting I did and tons of things that I forgot all about, but now the memories are flooding back. Enough so that I have a few blog to write!