SUMMER THOUGHTS, THE LOST HOME MOVIES

Dad purchased an 8mm amateur ‘Holiday’ movie camera in 1961. In my generation, these were the first glorious days of disposable income, where working class families were buying new cars on installment plans, redoing their kitchens, buying power lawn mowers, electric knives, and planning to help send their kids to college. In retrospect, for me that decade — basically through 1969 — seems to be the beginning and the end of a short, golden era. And, thanks to Dad, an important number of those idealized memories were recorded on film.

Parties, Christmases, summer vacations, just goofing around and making faces, too. Reel after reel was sent away each week to be developed at the Kodak plant just 35 miles away, in Rochester, viewed by us all, then carefully placed in a special metal box for protection. Three of my grandparents were still alive then, my own parents seemed ever so happy together, we had a dog, everybody was young. Yes, a golden age, and all was documented, albeit in sometimes the most haphazard way, on 8mm color film.

But now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace, only a shadow.

Dad would secretly film loving shots of Mum out in the back yard, as she was stretching out, with her natural elegance, dressed in her capri pants, enjoying a break from the summer heat after a day’s work. I see her there waving and smiling to the camera, reclined on one of the aluminum lawn chairs we’d bought up at the Big N in Batavia, or sometimes even gotten in exchange for several S&H Green Stamp books. The rule with these chairs is that there were never enough for everybody, so they just kept buying them each summer. The webbing on the chairs was bright green and white, or sometimes turquoise on the fancier, more expensive models. The folding aluminum “chaise lounge chairs” were incredibly light and could brought around to the front lawn at a moment’s notice, for example when the young couple Stiles and Pat from across the street would drop by to have a batch of Dad’s whiskey sours made in our new electric blender that also crushed ice. Those carefree moments were filmed, too.

Now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

He also filmed Mum when she’d be “out in back,” digging the weeds in her flower gardens. Gladiolas were out behind the garage, asters and marigolds were on the sunny side. She had beds of iris, too, in every imaginable color, and I remember the pride she showed by bringing them into the house and arranging them in her favorite vases. Peonies, deep red and the pink ones too, were always there, out by the lilac trees in back. And the focal point of the side yard was a pair towering pine trees, planted when they first bought the house in 1946.

In the shade of those pine trees we celebrated many occasions, had outdoor picnics on weeknights when Dad got home from work, and once we even set out a particularly long table, when Nana and Fufa came down for Memorial Day in 1963. That was the last time Fufa was in Pavilion for he died that year, and I remember how he sat with majesty, and was filmed, at the head of the long table on that warm day. It was right after a ceremony down at the Town Park in Pavilion, and I was the US flag-bearer for the parade. They probably chose me among the other scouts since I was so tall, just like Fufa, actually. My grandfather was a proud, living memory of World War I, having served overseas in France, and Mum made a point of telling me that he was proud of me in the parade. The parade, and the beautiful images of that day, with the flag waving in the gentle spring breeze, with that humble old Veteran proudly dressed in navy blue, with his white, golden-cufflinked shirt and a dark bow tie of course, are all in the movies. To me, at that time, his dignity seemed to resemble that of the great Charles De Gaulle. This was indeed another era.

Now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

Winter or summer, Nana was always seen in a dress, and solid shoes, as these times were obviously way before ladies put on shorts and slacks, or tennis shoes, indeed another generation. When she saw me out in the backyard, barefooted in the soft, warm grass, she told me in secret that she also never wore shoes during the whole summer when she was young. In one of the movies, at the beginning of a take, indoors now, Nana appears, and walks slowly and with her natural calm toward the camera, holding a dish carried from the kitchen of our house into the dining room, where at the same time I was playing the piano, on the left. Shyly, she bears her gentle, kindly smile, and steps so close to the camera and Dad’s blinding projector lights that her image becomes white and blurred, then flickers out. But after several viewings I was able to glimpse in a passing moment that her dress is a rust colored pattern, made of a silky fabric, with cap sleeves just covering the top of her very comfortable arms, and which goes nicely with her short-cropped, permanented hair that had a matching rinse. That tender, loving smile, her powdered, grandmother smell, and her simple, comforting presence is always a pleasure to recall. These images have great symbolism for me, since they are the only moving images of Nana and me together, and under the spell of music, a bond we deeply shared since my earliest memories.

Now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

It was always an event when my grandparents came to visit us in Fufa’s big blue Oldsmobile. It had massive amounts of chrome everywhere, and deluxe whitewall tires. Slowly approaching our house, maybe to avoid a dent or a scratch on the enormous car, he parked it right in front of the house in Pavilion, at the foot of the sidewalk. They would slowly climb out of the automobile, Fufa first, then slowly but gallantly opening the door on the passenger side for my grandmother. I would guess that it was most probably his heart that was making him slow down by then. It’s early summer, and through the mottled noonday light and shade of the great pair of native maple trees that graced our front yard, it was a spectacle to see, and for me the reel seems now to run in slow motion, stopping on each frame as I analyze the aged couple walking up the sidewalk to approach the front porch and those three, treacherous steps. The screen door hinges would sing as the full view to the camera is thrust open to welcome home these two beloved human beings, both born in the late 19th century and yet still a vital part of my consciousness today.

Now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

Dad worked long hours, sometimes six days a week, including Saturday mornings which payed overtime, and what a relief it must have been when the factory gave him his two weeks’ vacation, which he usually chose to take in August, so he could get the family up into the Adirondacks or the cool of Canada for a respite from the dreaded heat. In later years, it was three weeks. It was when Mum’s migraine headaches got bad one year, that they decided to make a pilgrimage to Trois Rivières, where the cathedral of Our Lady was reputed to heal all such afflictions. The long drive could get us well into Canada the first day, but an overnight motel stay near Montréal was necessary. Dad filmed the journey to Quebec during several of our succeeding trips up there over the years, and one scene I still see clearly was shot and filmed from behind, just of Mum and me. She’s in her beautiful light pink skirt, and matching high heels; I’m in short pants, my new Madras-patterned Bermudas. We’re holding hands and sauntering uphill on a charming sidewalk near the cathedral one morning right after breakfast. To boost my spirits, or to demonstrate her caring for me, we were swinging our joined hands up and down, back and forth, as we walked. It is a perfect image of the bond joining me and my mother, artistically caught by my father’s eye. I was eleven or twelve, and on vacation with my parents. Ron must have been back home with a summer job. We were a close-knit family unit of three that day.

Now, every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

I decided one summer I would make posters to announce an Animal Fair to take place right after the kiddie parade which was held downtown by the Post Office. Every kid in town was in our side yard that Saturday afternoon. A prize would be given for the Best Animal. In that movie, there was a pair of young goats, playfully teasing with their horns and pushing back Sally, a neighbor girl, as she skillfully played matador; there were tamed rabbits; dogs of all sizes; there was a wonderful, large white horse who made a very impressive appearance; there were Mum’s two pet geese which she raised from tiny yellow goslings, squawking and demonstrating their broadest wingspan. And there were at least a million kids, everyone in town, I think. I remember Ron showing up on his unicycle and being filmed, too. We all played “pin the tail on the donkey,” which was my stand, and I can’t recall a more amazing day in my childhood. Mum served beverages to the entire, thirsty crowd. Dad filmed it all, and I think he also enjoyed every moment of our mirth and childish joy.

Now, every one of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

First Holy Communions were filmed, Chuck and Betty’s new 1964 Impala was filmed; Grandma Reinhart came out on her back porch and shyly opened the screen door, held a pose, waved and smiled, and was also filmed. Then there was my little cousin Jimmy, playing in a cute white baseball hat and running around at age 2 in the grass one day; Aunt Carrie, back from Berlin, was filmed in her back yard, too, telling stories about escaping the War.

I recall so well the flickering images and the clatter of the turning reels, the noisy buzz of the rickety movie projector, especially at the end of a spool, the suspense of waiting silently in the darkness, and Dad with his pipe in his mouth, fussing to change the projector light bulb. The waves and ripples of the large size screen were part of the images, set up so many times for yet another projection of the latest episode of our gradually unravelling lives, then put away again in the attic.

Sometimes Dad would splice together films so that we could enjoy them for a few moments longer than those little reels of barely three minutes’ length: a feature film which didn’t usually seem to have much continuity at the time, but as we know, context is everything. Now, my longing for a certain past makes each little frame a treasure.

Every reel of those home movies is lost, gone without a trace. Only a shadow.

After Dad died in ‘77, we gave up for several years the trouble of pulling out all that material from storage. Then when Mum’s macular degeneration got worse, it seemed better to avoid the frustration she seemed to experience from not seeing the faded images very well. I guess I last saw any of these films, with my own eyes, over 40 years ago… Mum moved out and sold the house in Pavilion 25 years ago, after 50 years of living there, and the movies were then stored in a closet in her new apartment in Batavia. Or left with my brother. Or with a friend in Pavilion. Or misplaced in a move. No one can remember the same version of the story now, and frankly, the hatchet has been buried. It’s all fine.

I’ve always said that when I get rich, I’ll someday hire Steven Spielberg to do the casting and film a remake of my favorite scenes, in 8mm of course. It’s an enormous task, but he has the production company ready to go. I’ve heard Steve is a bit busy now, doing final cuts on some “musical comedy” about New York, but I’m still hopeful that someday he’ll answer my calls.

I think it would take at least his talent for atmospheric lighting and tug-at-your-heart sentiment to anywhere nearly approach the charm of Dad’s greatest gift to us, our lost home movies.

For now, there remains only a shadow.