Grandpa’s Slides–Phil and Milly Danielson, Marjorie Kowlaksi with Findley.
I went through them all, as I told my cousin I would. My mission, to rid all of us of the burden of Grandpa’s slides. There were hundreds and hundreds of them and I sat, with a portable viewer, and looked at every single one. You can’t go through all those slides without a comment or a thought, or a laugh, or confusion. You can’t review them all without tears or regrets, a plethora.
As I clicked each one into the light, I felt a rush of time like the current of water surging over the boulders of the Frying Pan River.
There were moments at Thanksgiving tables, forced smiles, faces giving away hidden irritations. Pictures of our mothers, in different stages of pregnancy with us, with siblings, with cousins.
Since this chore, my dreams have become old movie frames in vivid Kodachrome. Reliving my life before I was born and after and reliving those of people I knew so well, most now gone.
Slides of Grandpa Ralph with fish, hundreds of them . . . I mean hundreds of slides and hundreds of fish. Grandma Luverne among the flowers, every type. Flowers in Hawaii, in Oaxaca, in Sweden, in Maine, in the Colorado Rockies.
Dan and Luke and Stephen and David, and Ken, fly rods in hand, hovering over a good spot for trout. Girls didn’t fish apparently, no fishing photos of me or my sister.
Horses, long gone now, pack mules and donkeys. Grandpa took pictures of animals of any type, trained monkeys in embarrassing outfits, dancing; young cows in feed lots ready for slaughter as veal, muddy pigs in disgusting styes, big horn sheep, mountain goats, elk, and deer.
There was an alligator in a wrestling match with some poor fool. Dogs, plenty of dogs: border collies, Labradors and shepherds. Old dogs, young dogs, stray dogs and pampered ones.
Grandpa took pictures of every mountain he ever saw. Mountains rising on multiple continents, in different countries. Rocky Mountains, in multiple views, multiple years, multiple months, multiple angles.
Slides of glaciers now gone.
His love of mountains gushed through the films.
Grandma and Grandpa had friends, many. Friends from college, work, travels, from a distance, close up.
And there were their relatives, my relatives, our relatives. Grandpa captured them in Sweden, in Iowa on the farm. He snapped them in Nebraska in front of white picket fences and in Maine, all of them squinting into the sun. Relatives in Massachusettes, in his beloved Basalt and Aspen—family from way back—people curved over from hard work. Swedish aunties who dared exchange the harsh Colorado winters for the baking sun of California. As I clicked through each glowing slide, I fell deep with the weight of all their lives. This one now gone, that one now gone—all now gone.
Slides, more slides. Grandma and Grandpa on their travels: in foreign living rooms, at a distant church, outside old cabins in Wyoming, in Banff, in Glacier, in Alberta, in Guatemala, in Panama, Oaxaca, all over Mexico, posing in the stocks in Salem, at the Mayflower. How did I not know how much they traipsed around? I suppose they lived while we were ensconced in our growing up.
I drank wine through a wearisome series of shots in graveyards: graves, flags on graves, Grandma in front of graves, flowers on graves. Then there were the churches—Lutheran churches, Episcopal churches, Who-Gives-a Damn- churches.
Of course, I could have predicted this grouping— trains, train tracks, train trestles, train equipment, train spikes, train smoke, if only slides could chug-chug and whistle.
There were the family events, usually fraught with tension, I could read it on the faces frozen in crafted smiles: Christenings, weddings, funerals, holidays. Each event with multiple angles, multiple groupings, multiple table settings, multiple coordinated outfits: hats, white gloves—Grandma particularly liked mauve and lilac. Pictures of family in interiors and exteriors.
The Faculty Ranch, the cabin that now rests deep in the waters of a reservoir. A vivid Kodachrome trip back to another age. All Grandpa’s colleagues at gatherings, fish fries in the columbine, aspen, on the St. Vrain before they dammed it up. Young children in short sets frolicking in the meadows
Then there was Ridge View, Grandma’s place in Maine. 1798. It’s quaint construction, Grandma smiling among her Maine family—Clayton Weymouth and others, Colorado family that trekked across the continent to see their ancestral home: DeWitt, Maxine, Stephen, Vince, Michael, Dan, Dave, Ken, Keith.
Holy Cow did Grandpa love trees and Lord help us the flowers! All labeled with their specific names! I envy the detailed knowledge of varied species.
Cactus! They loved cactus . . . and lizards.
My grandparents were creatures of their surroundings, their environment, they saw such beauty in the small things and held it tight in slide film.
Many, many photographs of rattlesnakes in different stages of coil, most snappped with a hoe in the picture, ready to end the poor things lives on this earth, gone now, like Grandpa himself.
It is impossible to name everywhere that Grandpa fished, except did I know of his men’s fishing trip on Lake Mead by Hoover Dam? There may have been alcohol involved. Don’t tell Grandma
Did I know that Grandma Luverne actually laughed a lot? Or was it just for the camera?
Aunt Lucy did not smile, ever. Grandpa clowned around whenever he could, even in Grandma’s dresses or with goofy hats. Aunt Vivian lingered in the back with a snarl. Mr. Jones and Mr. Burdette, who “married in” were saints, Uncle Clarence, a bear of a man. Missing always, Uncle Myron who was hidden away somewhere in shame. What photos of him existed, long gone.
I have now seen every float of the Rose Bowl Parade of some year when the University of Colorado went to the Rose Bowl. And every float for CU Homecoming for how many years?
His slides wrapped me in a familiar blanket, in his basement, lights off, the glittery screen and the smell . . . what was that smell? Dust burning on the projector? Or the future lighting incense for us all?
As I went through hour after hour, day after day, I made a little pile for each of us, special slides that I hoped someone would want for whatever reason soon to be transformed into the digital technology of our time, technology Grandpa Ralph never lived to see, his life cut short while fly fishing in his favorite stream.
The “to keep” piles grew slightly, but the piles of the rejected grew into mountains like the peaks of the Colorado Rockies. After many deep breaths, a tear or two, I took Grandpa’s hundreds and hundreds of slides, all neatly captioned and categorized by his very hands, the letters getting more spidery through the years, the slides that showed the heart and soul of his life and those of his generation, slides of things now lost and gone, the slides he snapped and developed and organized and labeled and I took them and threw them in the trash.
I hope to be forgiven.
Just Carrie 