Summer of Photos from the 1970s: Lulu and I in the Backyard Sunshine

In the 1970s, I had a dog named Lulu who would sit with me in the sunshine, chatting about things. I'd tell her stories, and she'd nod in approval. Sometimes we'd quietly observe the adults, and their strange and mysterious ways. They'd be doing things adults did that we didn't really understand, like using can openers or paying the electric bill, and we'd collaborate on how baffling it all was. 

Here I am in my cowgirl dress, complete with a bandana and a 1970's retro-style Goody brand red plastic bow barrette placed squarely on my head. The morning sun would lay soft on suburban green grass that looked a whole lot like the shag carpet in the house. Lulu and I would sometimes spend time together before I was placed in a car seat and off to church. While coffee hour with humans can be nice after church, a pre-church social hour with your dog is the ideal way to spend the earlier hours of a Sunday morning. 

Lulu's face showed she was already pretty old by the time I was born. She had probably seen the 1960s and the 1970s both, and considering all the social upheaval of the time, that was a lot for a dog to take in. Sometimes we would watch Walter Cronkite deliver part of the nightly news and then we'd wander off to see what toys we had left lying around the backyard earlier in the day. She seemed like a dog who understood everything. She had been around long enough to see the ridiculous vanity of the human situation, and at the same time, all the beauty, love, and humor of it. Being an old soul myself, there was a lot of camaraderie between us. 

In my earliest of days, her soft little ears were always there for me to hold gently in my hands. Her affirming looks showed me she knew I was small and that she needed to watch out for me. Her black coat was ever-huggable in the warm sun; her golden eyes were wise. Here's to every Generation Xer who remembers a dog from their growing up years, may we find them again on the other side. 

I loved her so.  Lulu and I.  

(c) 2024 by Chloe Koffas - All rights reserved 

Summer of Photos from the 1970s: Blue Photo Albums and Backyard Bliss

It's the Collective Experience....

Ever since I started blogging about Generation X in 2011, I deeply hoped to make my way back to the photos of my early childhood. It took a long time to find my way back to them. Posting pictures of your growing up years illuminates the collective experience you have with your generation in a very real way. It's the details, the pop culture things that are framed in the picture, the album in the background by some one hit wonder band you forgot and then lovingly remembered once again, it's that kitchen with the avocado green General Electric stove in the background and the comforting smell of dinner baking inside. You see some detail in one of your photos, or in someone else's photo, and a flood of emotions goes over you. If you are Gen X, the things in your childhood photos, like the toys you played with, or the books that were on your shelf are a part of my story, too - I would have played with some of those same toys as a tot, I would have read some of those same books as a child.

The Eclipse

Last spring, I went to Texas to visit my father. He invited me to go see the April eclipse, and I had this intuitive feeling that something lost would be found during that visit. I was shocked and overjoyed when old 1970's photo albums emerged from a shelf in a closet - I spent an afternoon opening the pages and taking digital photos of analog ones. Emotion came over me like a hard desert rain. I hadn't seen some of the photos since the 1980s, I hadn't seen some of the pictures since the 1970s, and some I had never seen. We will remember 2024 as a year of a big eclipse in America, and it's incredible the way that sometimes what was lost can somehow be found, yet that's how eclipses work - there is a darkness, and then parts of the universe are brought out into the light. So while the sun shines, this will be my summer of posting 1970's pictures that are from my childhood. And we will begin with a picture from summer, and a checklist of official funny things 1970's tots did.... 

While the above list mentions a few things floating around in the pool, like my Fisher Price Little People car - the red one I am holding in my hand in this picture - I should also mention a few more things that are worth noticing just for the humor of it all:

1) The random blue metal barrel in the background my father brought home from work as a backyard toy: a tunnel for me to crawl through or hide in

2) If you look closely, you'll see white styrofoam peanuts that I was borrowing form a neighborhood friend - these are drifting across the water because I needed to check if they could float!

3) My slowly emerging chipmunk teeth really add to the photo.

4) The kiddie pool, which was purchased at the same store as the pink sparkly ball (Grand Central - which was later bought out by another retail chain) and the funny, random mix of animals on my pool: fish and elephants?

Fresh Cut Green Grass and Blue Sky

And while there is so much to laugh at in this picture, there is something so beautiful and sacred about it - I loved that backyard so much, it was my little paradise - the sun, the puffy clouds moving gently above me, the sweet simplicity of being young and life being easy for a while. I am one of those rare people whose memory goes back to being a baby. I remember this moment of toddlerhood well, my father took the photo, smiling and laughing my desire to drink up every fun moment life could offer. How incredibly sleepy, and happy, I felt in that moment. I didn't want to miss a thing - the cool water on my toes, the New Mexico sun warming my back as it hung there in the bluest sky. There was the sweetest of smells: fresh cut green grass mowed by my father, the wafting scents of the flowers planted by my mother, and that extraordinary, electrical, earthy smell of a desert summer rainstorm slowly rolling in over the horizon. I loved that backyard. 

There was the orange of the marigolds in our yard, there was the pink of the desert sunsets. There were the open, starry nights. Bend the sunlight toward me and let it warm my shoulders, send me a New Mexico thunderstorm to give my soul the strength it needs to go on, give me a moment to feel that bliss once again, when life was new, when hope was full.  

Here's to believing what was lost can be found again, here's to dusty old blue photo albums of the 1970s that hold our collective memories. When I have seen others Gen Xer's pictures from the 1970s, not knowing that I would ever find my own 70s pictures again, I would look for myself in their pictures - my old toys, my old books, my own story. Now that I finally have made my way back to my old pictures, if you want to, you can look for your story in mine. 

                                                              (c) 2024 by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved