The Curmudgeonly Professor

Red Leaves on a Green Bush

 

Gathering From Another Era: Random Photo from the Archives March 18 2011

 

Winter in Laramie WY: Random Photo from the Archives for March 18 2011

 

Mickey Mantle Autographed Ball in Home Where We Stayed a Month in Georgetown TX in 2004: Photo from the Archives for March 8 2011

 

On the Oval on the Colorado State University Campus: Photo from the Archives for February 23 2011

 
In about 1956, I shared an office in the center of the top floor where the curve is.  My office mate had cluttered his desk with stuff, filled the pulled-out leaves with piles of papers, piled high the table behind his desk.  So one day I came in the office and he was writing on a yellow pad on his knee.  He was a labor economist; maybe that had something to do with it.  I spent 10 years at Colorado State, beginning when I was 21 and had just finished a master's degree in agricultural economics at Montana State, returning after I finished my Ph.D. prelims at Michigan, and once more after teaching at Wyoming for 9 years.  This photo was taken when I was a visiting professor at CSU during the late 80s.  But my office was no longer here.  I always loved Colorado State and Fort Collins, though I finished my career at Brigham Young.

Turning Back the Clock: Stylish Ladies from the 1930s

 

Son Jim by White House Fence Washington D. C. 1957: Random Photo from the Archives February 13 2011

 

The Curmudgeonly Professor Played the Tuba in the Powell WY High School Marching Band 1948

 

What To Do With Your Photographs: Part I

Most people past the Captain Kangaroo stage have at least two major sets of photos:

• Pre-digital photos, including black and white, Polaroid, Kodachrome--some printed but mostly in slides.  Remember when we had our nice little slide projector (yes, son Jimmy, you managed to render that inoperable through your insatiable curiosity, along with my Retina IIIC, an original gem of a 35 mm. camera), and we had our slides all neatly organized in labeled boxes?  Black and whites were some times organized into photo albums on black paper with white or black photo corners holding them on the pages, about half of which fell off over the years.  Sadly, many of these albums were cannibalized as people robbed them of favored pictures.  Polaroids were fun, but most of them look like microwaved Jello today.  We printed some photos from slides, but mostly we just looked at the slides.  Then, over time, we accumulated shoeboxes full of unorganized prints and negatives and slide boxes full of slides, which became increasingly disorganized and out of order over time.  We keep acknowledging that we need to something with these photos some day.  But, out of sight and out of mind, we often never get around to doing anything until, sadly and all too often, we have waited too long.

These collections of pre-digital era photos are the lifeblood of our heritage, and deserve careful preservation.  We'll talk more about what to do with these treasured relics of our past in the next post in this series.

• The second set of photos, which emanaged from the digital era, are digital photos.  Most people I talk to, if they take photos at all, say that the photos are all sitting on their hard drives and they don't know what to do with them.  More on this later.

Turning Back the Clock: Proper Camping Attire from the 1920s

 

Turning Back the Clock: A Spiffy automobile and some Well-Dressed Flappers in a Blurry Photo from the 1920s

 

Great Granddaughter Sadie and Great Grandson Jack

Too early to tell what Sadie's vocational plans are.  Maybe first to get a bunch more teeth.  She was walking up to Halloween scarecrow decorations the other day and talking to them.  She did not like them.

Great grandson Jack with Auntie Michelle.  Jack was given an added advantage with the middle name of Blood.  Jack Blood.  Has a nice ring to it.

All of my grandchildren and great grandchildren are smart, but, regrettably, no one yet has ventured that they want to follow my sterling example and become a college professor of economics.  Instead they pick stuff like physical therapy, English teacher, biology teacher, organizational behavior, psychology.  My one grandson who has Dwight as a middle name is a music major.  A singing economist would be a good thing.  Maybe that would keep the precious little freshmen alert and entertained.  Two granddaughters have delayed college because they would rather have babies.  Like 10 between them.  And the one with 6 has 7 on the way.  At least it expands my family tree.  Surely one of them will want to become a college economics professor.

  

Seventeen Grandchildren in Sedona AZ in the year 2000 Singing "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother."

Four Granddaughters

I need to put this photo also on our family blog, but I liked the photo and wanted to show it off here as well.  Left to right, Melanie, Megan, Monica, and Michelle.  Monica leaves this week for the Minneapolis Spanish speaking LDS Mission for a year and a half, and will then return to BYU and complete her last year in biology.  Monica is a full member of the WKWW Secret Society (We Know What's What) which I organized for the granddaughters when they were younger.  The rule was, they had to use big words, and could not reveal what they knew to anyone else because then others would also know what was what.

We Go To the World's Fair in 1965