Back in the 70s, my family would occasionally have Saturday Night Slide Show night at our house. Dad would pull out the slides and we’d spend hours munching on Mom’s popcorn, listening to Mom and Dad as they narrated the slides. Sometimes Mom would even cook the popcorn over the fire. In this special aluminum container that would billow into a huge ball as the popcorn popped.
Recently, my husband scanned every one of Dad’s slides. There were over a thousand. Well, look at some of the gems we found. These never made the Saturday Night Slide Shows. Maybe Dad thought he would bore us.
Yes, that’s Nixon you see there, taking to the astronauts during the first moon landing. Dad took a picture of the TV! There is over a dozen of these slides, some not even of anything recognizable.
I remember when he took these. (Yeah, I know; I’m aging myself.) Dad had to take these at a slow shudder speed because otherwise he would have gotten a bar across the TV screen showing an incompletely rendered picture. That’s why they’re blurry; he didn’t have a tripod. Plus the pictures were, yanno, moving.
Here are some more of the ones that turned out the best:
Looks like they’re putting up the flag, here.
Milling about the moon, just because we can.
Love that retro caption! Way to cover up the subject of the picture with the caption. Broadcasting types have learned a lot since then.
And finally:
My sisters, brother, my Mom, and me at a picnic. I’m the daydreamy one wearing brown in the back. How does this picture fit in with the above? Check out the moon landing photos in the newsmagazine next to Mom.
I remember the moon landings quite clearly, but not the picnic. Looks like fun times anyway.
Wow–kind of geeking out here too 🙂 These are great!
Thanks, Deb. I kind of thought you’d like this one!
You remember the first moon landing? That’s pretty cool. 🙂
I am JUST BARELY old enough. Those days of the space program are nothing like they are now. Those guys were as famous as rock stars. They had a ticker tape parade through New York City. It was amazing. And since I lived in Central Florida, we saw moon launches and many, many rocket launches and shuttle launches.
And I remember my dad fiddling with the camera!
I never thought of that perk to living in Florida. 🙂 My parents were both in high-school during the moon launch, so they remember it. The schools brought in a TV so they could witness history being made.
I remember dad had an old picture book from before the moon launch about what people thought traveling through space would be like. It involved stopping at a space station along the way. 🙂