Unexpected treasures

 

Our basement is still yielding treasures. Recently, I took advantage of the 50% discount on digitization with Forever to send two little reels of 8mm film in to see what was on them. They were labelled "Ricky 1962" and "Little League 1964" but I didn't hold out much hope after all this time. Because of the special offer, it took a little longer than usual to get the digitized movies back but when I did I was blown away! Two little videos, a little under 4 minutes a-piece. There was no sound but, despite the dirt and scratches, the colors were still bright. I saw my 73 year old husband at almost 10 years old, with his dad and brother. I saw him at 12 playing Little League baseball, and my brother in law returning home on The Golden Bear after his 6 month Coast Guard training cruise around the world. To think we nearly threw them away!

The latest treasure to surface is a box of slides from my high school trip to Provence in 1973. I remember the trip well. I went to an all girls school. The trip comprised eleven students, a female teacher and a male chaperone who was the father of one of the girls. We drove in the school mini van, emblazoned with the name "Stevenage Girls' School" and a GB sticker, in case there was any doubt that we were English. We took a hovercraft from Ramsgate to Calais* and broke down almost immediately near the small town of Bapaume. Our teacher sweet talked the garage and they agreed to expedite the necessary parts from Paris. In the mean time, we caught a local bus to Arras, where there was a youth hostel. Looking back, I don't remember any of us being particularly worried. We spent two days in Arras before moving on to Reims. Because of the delay, all our accommodation bookings were void and our teacher, Miss Collins, sorted everything out on the fly. There were no cell phones, in fact, some of the hostels did not have a land line. We slept in bunks and took it in turns to fix meals. I don't remember eating out in restaurants. I kept a page-a-day journal at that point in my life and I found the journal for 1973 (in the basement-where else?), which filled in some of the gaps. When I told my daughter a little of the story, she said, "You have to write this down!"

I started scanning the slides; in theory, my high end flatbed scanner does slides but I soon discovered that it was really hard to get a good resolution. I messed around with them for two days, on and off. Then I thought, to heck with it, I should practice what I preach.  I ordered a box and sent them in to Forever for the professionals to scan! Once I get them back, I will start writing down the story of that trip in my Forever account. 

Possibly no one but me will care about the pictures I took in 1973 but that trip was significant for me. It was a fun trip, full of surprises, with a group of friends and no responsibilities. A few months later, I graduated high school and joined the working world. 

*I found this video on line of the very hovercraft we took!   https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1HvUmHb3gY/