I was at my mother’s house yesterday cleaning out old boxes of photos when I ran across several photos I thought were cool. She also gave me several photo albums of old relatives that are no longer alive. We sat at the kitchen table and went through a big box of photos. We looked at every photo in the box. From time to time she would stop and tell me about who was in the photo or what was going on when the photo was taken. Of course I didn’t know any of the people in the photos. She said at one point that she’s the oldest living person on her father’s side of the family. That didn’t scare me. Seeing relative after relative in the photos with captions saying their ages in their 90’s, I’m sure my mother has many years left in her life.

I found a series of photos of guys together. My mother had no idea who they were or why she had photos of them. I’m not sure how old these guys are or what their relationships are but I found the poses to be interesting. Might any of them be gay? Maybe not. Just interesting to see guys in poses like this in the very early 1950’s. My mother said all of these were probably taken in 1951 or 1952.

Here is a picture of my mother at one of her showers before she got married. The photo is dated October 9, 1958. The caption says “Shower-Office Group”. It’s amazing how things have changed. In this photo all the women are drinking and smoking. Were they are work at the time? Probably not. It looks like someone’s house. My mother is in the middle opening the gift.

Here is a picture of my father. The photo was taken in 1960. Maybe he was in his bohemian phase. The hat would suggest so. The funky curtains must have really been in style.

I’ve got tons of photos of my parents taken in the 50’s and 60’s. They are all pretty wild like this. I’ll hang on to them for awhile I’m sure. I only scanned the photos you see here but I think this summer I will scan many more and create some kind of visual family tree.