1979

I wrote to Lois a couple of days ago that the first time I stayed at the house with Grammy and Grampy alone was 1982, but I found these photographs, which told me I was wrong. It was 1979. I was 12, and I had my first camera, my good old Polaroid Instamatic. Very high tech. As you can see, the quality was awful, and the colors have faded in 30+ years, but still pretty cool, and that little camera got me into photography.

   

Grampy had replaced the cellar hatch the year before. You can see the shingled patch where the old hatch was. The roof over the kitchen was reshingled the previous year as well, the same shingles that are on it now for the moment. The mattresses were always taken outside on the first day there to dry them out and get rid of the musty smell. Grampy started mowing the grass as soon as we arrived and he had the grass cut just around the house at the time I took this. The kerosene stove is sitting on the step, probably so Grammy could have some tea.

Mom, Dad and Christopher came to the River a couple of days later, and that's Dad at the cellar hatch

 

Who remembers the barn? It was torn down soon after I took this photo, and it supplied firewood for many years after that.  I remember taking this photograph. It was raining, and we were all running up the hill to the car to go visit somebody, probably Alex and Katie, or Walter and Hazel, or Danny and Winnie.