TBT, summertime edition - now with a couple of edits

Yesterday my sister went back to the house we grew up in. While we were cleaning out my mother's apartment my sister had found a batch of envelopes my parents had printed with our return address. She also found the embosser with our return address.

The embosser was a heavy metal contraption that had a satisfying feel in the hand as you pressed our return address onto the back flap of an envelope. My mother gave me that job back in the day when my parents sent out lots of new year cards.

When we found the envelopes and the embosser my sister thought that she would bring them to  the people who currently live in the house. Yesterday my sister completed that mission.  Last night my sister called me with a description of all of the ways that our old house was changed and improved.  The family who lives there now is lovely and I thought I would send them some photos of us and the house...and I pulled down my box of 1960's photos and decided to share a few photos of summer from the early to mid 1960's here before I send them to the current residents of our house. 

This is from August of 1966. My oldest sister is not wearing her glasses in this photo. My two sisters are wearing, as they often did in those days, matching outfits. There were many things I loved about what they were wearing. A matched outfit was in my mind was a great thing. I sorely envied the fact that my sisters not only had shorts that EXACTLY matched their shirts, my two sisters also matched one another. I did not get the opportunity to wear matching clothing with anyone. I did however get to wear the same outfit two sizes in a row. This was wonderful with some of the more coveted clothes, less wonderful with some of the garments I did not like as much. My hair is cut in the dreaded pixie cut. I was often mistaken for a boy when I was in pants.My contemporaries whose mothers got them pixie cuts ( "Oh they are so adorable!") when they were children, all wear their hair long now.

I am wearing a  drop waisted  light yellow ( I think) pique dress with an appliqued daisy that had a yellow pompom for the center. My mother adored this shade of pale yellow. A few years later our kitchen would be this color.  I am not sharing my feelings about this shade of yellow at this moment.

This photo is from two summers before. It is my oldest sister's 8th birthday party.

The guests are, beginning from the L in the back row, Betsy O'Hare who lived in the big wood trimmed stucco house a block away. Betsy's grandmother, Mrs. Dee babysat for us in the evenings. My sister Rebecca, the birthday girl, Christina Randall, Lois Dalton who lived around the corner and through the woods from us in a beautiful yellow and white house. My sister is still particularly fond of yellow houses, I think because of the Dalton's beautiful home.  Lois'  little brother once clonked me on the head with a golf club. Front row, from the left, Paul O' Hare, ( I had gotten his name wrong earlier and my older sister sent me the correction) Betsy's little brother, Rose Marie O' Hare who was about a year older and I and was my friend along with her little sister, Meggie who was just younger than I was.  There I am very pleased with my party favor, Next to me is Marky Randall who along with his little brother Stevie and even younger sister Paula were my gang of friends. There was a two year or so age span between those three younger Randall kids. Finally there is my sister Abby who also seems to be enjoying her party favor.

Some of the kids in this shot clearly lost patience with my father trying to focus his camera. 

I found a couple of other summertime shots not at the house that I decided to post today.

Here we are in Rockport out for a day to climb on the jetty and visit art galleries. No, we are not wearing play clothes but nice dresses that my mother had to iron. I love my sister Abby's chicken dress. I love the thoughtfully chosen black plastic ball buttons. When I owned this dress I used to chew on the buttons, because they felt nice in my mouth.

My sister Rebecca is wearing her awesome cat eye glasses. So grown up! We wore lots of dresses with smocking in those days.

I am wearing a pink and white tennis dress. It came with matching bloomers that I am wearing under the dress, even though you can't see them. I wore this dress to my grandfather's funeral the following August. We got the news that Papa had died while we were on vacation

My sisters look adorable. It looks like they are trying to smash me under the wood board. I look dubious, but perhaps I just needed to pee.