Throwback Thursday

I have no excuse now for not posting more on my blog. The current COVID-19 virus crisis has caused the Florida Governor to enact a STAY-AT-HOME order effective tonight at midnight. I will try to blog more often (even if I have little that may be terribly exciting/interesting to write about because of being house-bound).

One thing The Colonel and I now have the time for, is the scanning of all of our family photos. I have been removing them from albums and boxes so that The Colonel can scan them with his new, high-speed, desktop scanner. We have completed over 4500 photo scans thus far. Still many more to go. We wanted to scan all of our photos to preserve them and put them on drives for our daughter and son to have. We've scanned all of The Colonel's mother's photos. We will start on ours next as well as those left behind by The Colonel's sister upon her death.

As I was going through the photos, I  came across this one below.

Yes, that is me. That was me when I still had a waist (before two babies but I cannot blame it all on the babies) and still wore glasses (before LASIK eye surgery).

This photograph was taken when The Colonel and I were stationed at McChord Air Force Base in Washington State (1987-1992). It was taken in the early years of that tour, roughly around 1988 or 1989.

Now, I did not normally dress like I was a WWII war bride (my costume cost me about $10. I bought the dress and jewelry form Goodwill). I was dressed like this because I was in a women's singing group called The Pinetones. We were a group of about a dozen women who were wives of those stationed at McChord Air Force Base. My friend Claudette, whose husband was in the Canadian forces, asked me if I would like to join the group with her.

We ladies would meet a couple times a week to practice our songs. Our director had chosen the musical program. The program consisted of songs from different eras and each one of us ladies were dressed from those eras. As you can see, I was chosen to represent the WWII era.

We sang the songs in chronological order. Songs like, Bei Mir Bist Du Schon, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, Goin' to the Chapel and Somewhere Out There. Our program ran about 30 minutes.

Once our director felt we were ready, we gave performances at local venues. We sang for the elderly at nursing homes and assisted living facilities (they were not called that then of course, but 'old folks' homes). We sang at veterans' homes. We also sang one time at a mental hospital...now that was an experience...and kind of scary too...let me regale you...

We arrived at the mental hospital and were welcomed inside the lobby by the hospital's program director. We followed her through the locked doors in the dim hallways (the doors were locked behind us) to the large community room. There, sitting in chairs and  waiting for us, were about twenty patients. Most of the patients were quiet and seemed to enjoy our musical program. One male patient in particular was fascinated by our pianist's sparkly blouse. He would jump out of his chair and run over to the piano and begin caressing the blouse. It was a little unnerving to be locked behind doors in the mental hospital but not as disturbing as I thought it might be...guess I was basing things on "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Still, it was good to be out of the hospital once our program was finished.

I was with The Pinetones singing group for one "season". I had other interests and organizations starting to take up my time. I was involved with the Officers' Wives' Club as the publicist and also involved with the Squadron's Wives' Group. I lost contact with most of the other ladies, all except my friend Claudette, we still stay in touch.

So many memories rushed through my mind when I found this photograph again. All those years and experiences behind me. It made me smile.

I look again at the photograph below and am reminded of what my brother who looks into our family's genealogy once said. He said that we may be related to Lucille Ball...Hmmm...

Image from Internet