Get Duplicate for Doris
“Get duplicate for Doris” was written in pencil on the top edge of the Kodachrome slide. The vintage of handwriting was the cursive all of our grandmothers would approve of. Slide after slide, I held each one on the light table and followed the stories of people I've never met. Through the magic of analog photography, these images have persisted through time and place. I imagine whoever Doris was, she and her friends in these photos cared for each other and explored the places around them with eagerness and an appreciation that life is too short to waste.
A few weeks ago, my mom mentioned her sister, Pauli, was cleaning out her garage and intended to rid herself of a few dozen carousels of slides. Pauli knew I enjoyed photography and thought I might appreciate the plastic carousels to organize my slides. Immediately, I insisted I take all the boxes, slides and all. What I discovered inside those boxes, spread out on my light table, was more than I could ever have hoped for.
The photos were taken from 1949 through 1972. I do not yet know who the photographer was or how these people were related, but the photos appeared to be of family road trips around the country. They traveled together to Palm Springs and multiple trips to Hawaii. They drove through the Arizona desert, the Florida everglades, the Mendocino coast, the Grand Canyon, and New England wharfs. They sat in the grandstands at the 1950 Rose Bowl Parade. Many of the photos are candid, unposed, and occasionally the people photographed have an irritated expression that makes me laugh. Most of the photos are boring. There are dozens of photos in the flat desert filled with Saguaro cactus. There are close up photos of driftwood on the beach. Many are with harsh midday sun. But mixed in with these snapshots are the real photos of the trips. These are the in-between photos of the picnic in the sand, or of the walk down the terminal at the airport, or of fixing her hair in the mirror of the Jeep on a forest road in Tahoe.
The photos spanned decades and I saw the aging of these people. One year, he stood tall. The next year, he had a cane but kept the same hat he'd worn for the last five. I imagined the conversations they had as the Cadillac overheated outside of Bakersfield. I imagined them taking turns posing in front of the waterfall in Kauai. I have nothing other than these photos to give them a voice, character, or humor, but somehow, these photos are enough.
More to come in the next issue of the Skyriter Chronicles.
Teeth on the nightstand with matching pink lampshade