Insight: A bridge to the past

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

It’s that time of year when I go searching for a DVD of collected home movies that my parents made of our family when I was young.

The flickering images of treasured holidays long ago spent with relatives since departed always return me to my roots and takes me back to a simpler time and place, if only in my mind.

My mother and father had purchased a Kodak Brownie 8mm movie camera when I was just an infant and the first movie they shot was in 1956 when my mother took me on a bus trip to meet her cousin who taught at West Point Military Academy. The last few minutes of that film are of me at age 2 playing in the backyard in a plastic pool before my younger brother was born the following year.

The early part of that film was badly faded and can barely be seen as the movies were stored for more than 50 years in a box in a hallway closet in my parent’s home before I rescued them and had them put first on a VHS tape and later copied to a DVD by my friend Derek Suomi. There are more than 25 films that survived, and they perfectly capture what it was like growing up in our household and the unique personalities of people who came to visit us.

There are images of my late Uncle Bernie and Aunt Jeanette, Thanksgivings, Christmas celebrations, a snowball fight, birthday parties and a summer trip to Washington, D.C. in 1963.

In looking back at these images, I do recall my father dragging out the camera at certain times and the light bar he held to illuminate the scenes. Mostly what I remember about that light bar was how hot the lights were and looking up at it was rather blinding if it was pointed in my direction.

One of the films was taken at my sister’s wedding reception in 1966. It was the first time I had worn a tuxedo because I was an usher at the wedding, I had to sit with other members of the wedding party instead of with my parents and brother. I was situated next to my cousin Robin Wolf who was the flower girl at the wedding and my hair was slicked back by some Dippity Do gel to keep it manageable.

Another film showed my mother’s elderly cousin, Willie Newman, walking across his farm in Perinton, New York in the early 1960s. I remember how much my brother and I loved visiting that farm in the summer. He had a large strawberry patch where we could go and pick and eat as many strawberries as we wanted. I especially enjoyed the strawberry pies that my mother would make after a trip to Willie’s farm.

For one Thanksgiving dinner in 1962, my mother took the camera and filmed my father carving the turkey. It was amazing to see how everyone gathered around the dining room table that day was dressed up. The women all wore dresses for the occasion and the men were wearing white shirts and ties. My father was wearing a wristwatch that is noticeable as he is carving the turkey. It was one given to him by my mother on his 30th birthday in 1955. It no longer runs but I keep that wristwatch today in a jewelry box on my dresser in remembrance of my father, who died in 1991.

In that same movie, I spotted a large Oriental lamp my parents had in their living room going back to the 1950s. I still have it today, although it is in the basement right now as my wife and I have been looking for a new lampshade for it.

There’s a film included on the DVD of my 6th birthday party in 1959. I was dressed in a red fringe cowboy shirt, and I’m holding up one of my presents I received that year, a book called “Black Beauty” about a horse. What’s interesting in looking at the DVD is the difference in gifts that my brother and I received. Many of my Christmas and birthday gifts were books or for creative pursuits such as music or painting, while my brother received toy blocks for building or toy trucks.

There is movie footage of my late Aunt Bernice and Uncle Ray, my foster grandparents Bill and Ida Topham, the wedding of our family friend Jimmy Bartlett, and from when our new home was under construction when I was entering junior high school. I can watch as my father filmed me learning to ride a bicycle, and a memorable New Year’s Eve party in 1968 in which the party’s host filmed my parents kissing to ring in the New Year.

Watching these old home movies again always makes me nostalgic for the past and those I have lost to time. They are mementos of who I am, what I have experienced and who was there in that portion of my life.

These old home movies are a bridge for me and allow me to carry my past experiences into the present and not forget where I came from. <