throwback thursday mother's day edition: young reporter

since mother's day is approaching, i thought i'd share some photos of my mom as a young markets editor at the sioux falls argus-leader in what must have been the late 50s. i wish she'd saved ALL of these clothes, as i'd love to have had them.

looking very serious about her work. i remember we had a typewriter like that around the house when i was a kid - i think it's a royal and it was a real workhorse of a machine. i do love the clickity clack of a typewriter.

how great is that skirt and jacket? i'm not sure what that is she's looking at, but there were a few of these photos that seemed staged for some purpose or other. unfortunately, i don't know the story behind them, but i hope when mom sees them, she tells me.

apparently even then, you could be too busy to leave your desk for lunch. bad habits carry on through the generations, tho' i try not to do this too often.

this one is obviously staged. i remember that yellow dot-tape from my childhood - mom used to set type in our back room and the tape from the compugraphic machines would come out in long yellow ribbons, filling a big plastic garbage can. you had to type into one machine and run it through another machine that looked the same, but turned those yellow ribbons into set columns of type for the paper. i love that one shoe has fallen off. this photo has penciled crop marks on the top and side and on the back, there's writing.

i think it says, "keep deep (as marked) Sunday" and i'm not sure what that signature says - andy? or wiley? it was obviously used in a photo spread in the sunday paper.

happy mother's day (a little early) to mom and happy throwback thursday to the rest of us.

throwback thursday: me & lenin

me, on red square in 1994.
taking a photo of my sister, who was obviously taking a photo of me.
she was standing in front of st. basil's
so her photo is more picturesque.
here, all we've got is some melting snow, bits of the kremlin
and lenin's tomb.
tho' i did quite enjoy that. in a creepy cool kinda way.

* * *

you know i am against the use of LOL, 

as i believe that god kills a kitten every time someone (over)uses it. 

but still, this made me laugh out loud.

good thing my parents don't have smart phones.

* * *

how cool is the packaging in this post?

why have i never felt young? #tbt

sabin and i in chicago in, i think, 2005. i was clearly still in my morning news anchor hair phase. i put this on facebook and a friend remarked that we were sweet and oh, so young. and it's true, i can see that (especially with sabin). but looking back, i don't think i felt young then. i can't remember ever feeling young, actually.

ever since i left college after my first year and lived for a couple of years in california (finding myself? losing myself?) before going back to a different university to finish my studies, i've felt older than the rest of the pack. because i'd spent those couple of years, i was then a couple years older than my fellow sophomores when i did return to university. that left me older than my fellow students in my various master's programs as well. tho' less so at arizona state, where there were other "mature" students in the program. i was a couple years older than my fellow fulbright scholars back in macedonia. i was rather old when husband and i got married (31) and pretty old when i had sabin (33), my first child.  that would put me at about 37 in this photo and i have to say that i didn't feel young. i was an older mother. older mothers are the norm now, i realize, so it's not with any sense of shame i say that. it's more that i feel a little regretful that i can't remember feeling young.

what is it about the times that we are in, that we can't appreciate them or really see them until later, in retrospect?

mom at work #tbt

my mom worked at a newspaper when she was young. if i recall correctly, she was the markets editor, but i know that she also spent some time as a typesetter. it's where she met my dad and they actually still refer to the building itself as "the scene of the crime." the newspaper in the photo is the sioux city journal, but i'm sure it was the sioux falls argus-leader where she worked. they must just have been scoping out the competition. she was apparently taking a little break or perhaps reading up on some or other finer point in the style manual. it's a fun little edition of throwback thursday.

throwback thursday - macedonia, summer 1995

oh, to be so young and thin again. it was the summer of 1995. a month at lake ohrid, ostensibly studying macedonian. but also having an awful lot of fun in absolutely glorious weather.

these were some of my fellow students from arizona state. that guy on the left was from alaska, but i'll admit i can't remember his name. the other one, whose name also escapes me (bob?), was the one who taught me the phrase, "it always comes back to me." the one is the cap and sunglasses is my friend dmitry, him, i remember very well and he's still a friend.

those high-waisted shorts are almost going to be in again. i don't know if i was pretending to be spiked on that spikey thingy or what. it was the balkans, after all, and those probably usually had a head on them in ottoman times.

another beautiful summer day on gorgeous lake ohrid. it was this wonderful summer that lured me back there on a fulbright in 1997. i have no recollection of who those girls on the left were. memory is funny like that.

at the foot of the statue of cyril & methodius. cyril was the guy who came up with the cyrillic alphabet. and they were scholars right there in the beautiful old churches of ohrid.

this guy was the owner of a place we found for my friend from belgrade to stay when she came to visit. it was a private home and he actually took us around on the lake in his boat and we drank quite a lot of rakija with him and ate some small silvery fish whole, heads and all. they were grilled and salty and really quite delicious. it all resulted in a toast to milosevic at one point, but we were young and we had to be nice to him because dajana was staying there. and then there was the rakija.

husband the builder (#tbt)

husband was already a master builder way back then. this is one of my favorite photos of him. ever. i do love these thursday strolls down memory lane. this is in the back garden of his childhood home in sweden. and doesn't it foreshadow the future?

hungary, you say? #tbt

she had no idea of the troubles that lay ahead.

you will be relieved to know that even when you have what is arguably the best job in the world, you can still have a bad day. that bad day will likely be brought on by computer issues, which nearly frustrated you to the point of tears. in fact, the tears were there in your eyes, unbidden, but you managed to realize how utterly ridiculous it was and fight them off. no inanimate object or ridiculous software setup should have the power to make you cry.

but it might have the power to make you be sort of absent from yourself. so absent that you forget your purse at the office and don't realize it until you're all the way home and going to the grocery store, which you then can't do since you don't have your purse. so you kind of stumble home and hope there's enough in the fridge to come up with something for dinner (there is).

and then you go out to feed the animals and find that talking to the cats and searching for the latest place the hens are hiding their eggs and measuring out grain and carrying buckets of water and the smell of hay and the crunch of contented horses eating their dinner will actually go a long ways towards making it all better. because tomorrow is another day and your purse will still be there when you arrive at the office. and even tho' your computer isn't talking to SAP (who can really blame it), it will still be a mac and it will eventually all get sorted out.

and you take a deep breath and have a glass of wine (despite your best intentions) and you realize that life is pretty good anyway. even when the help desk is in hungary.

* * *

in the midst of a bad day,

a project like this collaboration between olafur elliason and ai weiwei (and the world)

will give you hope.

little me (#tbt)

that's me. i'm not sure how old i am, maybe around a year and a half?

dang, dad looked young.
and how cool were my shoes?

but check out that cigarette in dad's hand.

there would be total outrage if you saw a parent smoking with their child in their arms today.

but i don't even remember him smoking.

chewing tobacco yes, but not smoking.
i'll bet they didn't even have a car seat for me.
and guess what? i survived.
and even kinda turned out.
more or less

* * *

but speaking of outrage with regard to children...
there's been an old LEGO ad from the early 70s circulating.
it features a super cute little red-haired girl.
well, someone found her.
and i have to say that i couldn't agree more.
i'm not a fan of the lines for girls and neither is my girl.
but it does seem that LEGO is held to a higher standard than other toy companies.
like, look at this piece on barbie making the cover of sports illustrated.
mattel says they're unapologetic.

* * *

have you heard all of the palaver about the danish giraffe marius?

well, this will make you laugh about it. 

buttercup and me, part 2 (#tbt)

that's buttercup, (you may remember her from last week) giving me a kiss after we apparently got second place in our class. i'm not sure if it was showmanship or halter, nor do i recall how many people were in the class. all i really know is that second place is the first loser and it was probably here that i first heard, "win or don't come home." such are the tribulations of being the eldest, all the expectations fall on your shoulders, even if you're only 7.

buttercup and me (throwback thursday)

throwback thursday #tbt is all the rage on instagram and facebook, so i had to get into the act. this photo is from a horse show somewhere in south dakota (i don't really recognize the place - it could be wagner or it might be platte) in june 1974. i didn't remember this pony's name, but my sister reminded me she was called buttercup. another facebook friend reminded me that she had an unexpected foal named peanut who became that friend's pony. weird how i have no recollection of that, tho' i do remember this halter class (and being very confused about where to stand).

there are a number of things i love about this photo - my little black and red pants. my boots that appear to be way too big. our light green station wagon and flying L horse trailer in the far background. that dark green horse trailer was the very height of horse trailer luxury in 1974. and i love the way the photo was printed with a bonus little version of the photo for your wallet.

in next week's #tbt, i will show you the result of the halter class i was waiting to go into.