ELECTRONIC BLUE MAGIC

It is true that older people find lots of enjoyment in reminiscing about the past. Bits and pieces of our childhood rattle around in our brain, and there is a great deal of fun in finding someone who can talk about it with you. Just before my sister died, as she was fighting hard to get her health stabilized but seemed to be losing the battle, she sent me an e-mail where she said she needed to stay alive because we were the only two left in our family who remember the early times. She was right, because aunts and uncles were all gone, we were the oldest of all our cousins, and our brother wasn’t born until I was 14 and she was 10. There were a lot of years that only she and I remembered.

Who would have ever thought that Facebook would be the medium for me to find a person from our past who not only had memories of a part of our childhood but also a whole bunch of snapshots that I had never seen before? Lots of people wonder why I spend any time at all on Facebook, because it really does seem to be a young person’s domain. However, even if I never experienced even one more moment of fun with Facebook, reconnecting with the Maynard family of Bakersfield was enough. And the contact came through finding Norman, who was only a second-grader when the family moved in down the street from us about 1950.

It was a large family, and during the one year they lived near us until they went back “home” I became a good friend of daughter Ruth and my sister was friends with Audrey. As it happens, Audrey had recently set up a Facebook account and Norman connected us. Audrey, with her wonderful reminiscences and photos, was able to bring my sister into the equation again with some marvelous pictures that show the silliness of young teens in 1950. I’d like to share a few of those photos with you today.


Good pals Ginnie Lou and Audrey in 1950. Pal, the family mutt, is at their feet. It was fashionable in Long Beach at that time to wear levis, hawaiian shirts and blue-and-white saddle oxfords.


I howled with laughter as I looked at this photo. Can you imagine kids today having fun this way? My mother was taking the photo, so apparently she saw nothing to be nervous about!


A "vintage" pin-up pose. Sultry Ginnie Lou was twelve and thinking ahead!


Pal was actually my mother's dog, but Ginnie Lou was a real animal lover and might as well be considered the "owner." Below is a unfortunately poor reproduction from the local newspaper of Pal and Ginnie Lou's rooster, who won a pet contest. The animals sat in a red wagon that my sister pulled across the stage. Ginnie Lou could make animals do anything!

I’ll be forwarding all of the pictures to my nieces and nephews, who I’m sure will enjoy seeing their mother in Junior High School. I think my own kids will also enjoy seeing this side of their Aunt Nunu. And Lord knows I’ve enjoyed seeing them.

I don’t use Facebook as my “social network” in the way that the kids do. In fact, often I don’t know what on earth my grandkids are talking about, for which I am sure they are often grateful! And for “seeing” and meeting for the first time genealogists that I’ve known for years only by letter is almost like having a real-time meeting.

But truly, best of all is discovering an old friend like Audrey.