Time Machine

The Time Machine stopped by our house yesterday, courtesy of Brad and Mom.

Some time ago, Brad took on the project of whittling the Family History as Presented in Slides down to a manageable number -- which happened to be somewhere north of 200. He turned to Mom for underwriting the project and, since they did all the real work, I'll take on the role of PR Flack, shamelessly promoting my past, adolescent geekiness included.

Putting aside the unfortunate junior high years for a moment, I was a cute kid. In 1969, when I was just 21 months, I was already learning how to ride a horse. This is no longer part of my skill set.


By the time I was 3-1/2, I was already wearing suits, preparing for my big legal career. Now I wear shorts whenever I can. This green ensemble from 1971 probably got me beaten up.


By the time 1975 rolled around, I had settled on blue as my favorite color. It didn't really matter what shade of blue, as long it was blue. "Hey! The trim on your lunchbox matches the color of your shirt," said my lovely bride last night. Yeah, that's exactly I was going for...


By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was a four-eyes, so to speak, with a charming pair of black-rimmed glasses made especially for an eight-year-old. I really like Brad in this picture. I'm not kidding ... with his pose, his stylish combination of plaid, a turtleneck and shiny black shoes, and his apparent lack of interest in me, he could be a model in, say, a 1977 issue of GQ.


In 1981, when I turned 14, I was working hard to cultivate the geek look. I was also, apparently, an Iowa State fan back then, though I believe I have repressed those memories.


Just three months later, at Christmas, not only had I perfected the geek look, I had also adopted the sullen teen attitude. I'm sure my parents enjoyed this phase of my life as much as I did.


Lucky for me, I started wearing contacts in ninth grade, so by the time the 1984 VEISHA parade in Ames rolled around, I was one stylin' guy, at least as far as my eyes go. I'm not sure what I can really say about wearing purple wool on a sunny day other than, "I had no choice."


Somehow, my nearly non-existent marching skills didn't keep me from landing in the Hawkeye Marching Band. Odds are, I'm hung over in this Saturday morning pre-game photo. Believing in keeping traditions alive, I spent most home-game Friday nights with a couple dozen other band members, wandering through the bars of Iowa City, playing the Iowa Fight Song and singing bawdy versions of other schools' fight songs (Hail, hail to Michigan, the cesspool of the east!) in exchange for free beer. Creatively, we called this activity "Beer Band."


And, most unfortunately, Brad made sure to include this 1986 photo of me in my brief mustachioed period.

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The CD brought along some old fashion memories, as well. I'm sure my father's leisure suit was all the rage in 1977 -- in fact, Mom says he wore it frequently -- but I don't remember the Leisure Suit Lynn era. You'd think with those silver-dollar-size white buttons, I would have been scarred for life.


Remember when people got dressed up for a flight? I don't, but I've heard about it. There's another picture of my grandparents and Mom and Dad at O'Hare International Airport where Grandpa is also wearing a suit. He was dropping Mom and Dad off. How times have changed.


And here's a side of Mom I've never seen before, doing a pretty good imitation of a 1963 pin-up girl. Frankly, I find this photo to be just a bit too much Back to Future, where Marty meets his mom when she was in high school and finds out his mom was, well, cute.

* * *

We're off for a week's holiday to Palau and Guam, visiting old friends and seeing how the islands which were our homes in the late 1990s have changed. Posting will likely be erratic for the next couple weeks ... not that it hasn't been recently.