Head Tale

As previously mentioned, we went to Indian Head to celebrate my parents’ 49th wedding anniversary last weekend.

As part of the trip down memory lane, we ended up watching some old home movies one night.

My dad regularly filmed holidays and parties and family gatherings with an 8mm camera when we were kids so, when we were older, for a Christmas gift one year, we had a bunch of old movie reels converted to VHS.  (This was done by the local theatre owner who moonlighted doing this type of work. And yes, those VHS are probably due for a conversion to digital.)

Anyhow, we only watched for an hour or so but I saw *many* horrifying things that reminded me just how different life was 40-odd years ago…

10. My parents pulled over on the side of the road and letting their kids crawl through a culvert.

9. This rusty, broken down fence?  Great area for the kids to play tag around!

8. Most of the hairdos/clothing choices/facial hair are pretty frightening.

7. A couple show up at a house party in pyjamas and begin disrobing (prompting Shea to ask my parents if they put their keys in a bucket too?)  But it turns out the guests have their real clothes under the PJs.  Mom and dad even remember the circumstances – the party was in full swing when they decided to invite more people including this couple who had said it was late and they were already in bed when they were called hence the joke about showing up in PJs.

6. A bear is filmed casually wandering through a roadside picnic site in BC and nobody seems overly concerned.

5. Mom appears to be applying blackface (unfortunately, not an uncommon costume choice in the 1970s) but turns out my costume is “farmer” and the shoe polish is meant to represent streaks of dirt.  (Whew – good to know I can still run from Prime Minister someday!) 😉

4. Speaking of Halloween, no pre-wrapped mini-chocolate bars or chip bags here. Yep, mom literally was the lady handing out apples to kids – definitely a no-no these days!

3.  A bunch of kids happily playing in the back of a grain truck.

2. I thought it was just because I was small back then but the amount of snow we regularly got in the 1970’s versus how it never gets that high anymore is a good reminder that climate change is real.

1. Easily the most shocking scene was a house party where a group of men sit at a table filled with cigarette butts and half-full stubby beer bottles while one gentleman waves a handgun around!

(You’ll see below that I snapped a shot of the scene on my parent’s old TV – you couldn’t even hook up a VCR to their new TV!  But anyhow, I purposely didn’t snap a shot that would show if this gentleman continued practicing even worse gun safety practices because I literally covered my eyes in horror during this sequence!)