A Lifetime in a Box

I was cleaning up the other night and in tidying up the room I was in, rediscovered a treasure I hadn't thought about in a while: an enormous box of vintage slides I picked up at an estate sale on a very cold and snowy winter day some time ago. The box itself is a vintage gem: very large and two-toned with multiple brass hinges and a bakelite handle, like a huge nearly perfectly square suitcase. But it's the treasure inside that sent me to haggle with some very obnoxious people running that sale (trust me, if this wasn't so amazing a find, I would not have even considered dealing with them).

Row after row, side by side and stacked on top of one another, are hard plastic trays full of hundreds and hundreds of slides that I presume were all taken by members of the same family throughout the years, from the early 1950's through the mid-60's and ending just before the counterculture exploded and changed life forever life as we knew it. Many are dated and labeled, but many are a complete mystery as to when or where they were taken and often even what the point of the shots were, leaving the viewer to guess what was in the mind of the photographer. Only the mile markers of fashion and interior design are a hint as to the year.

The earliest dated slides are of a farm, with big gorgeous draft horses and some lovely old cars and trucks in the shots, enormous spotty great danes and children, green apple trees dotted with red apples ripe for the picking, all of them in eerie ultra color, like they were taken with a lomo.

There are endless photos of vacations to exotic places and cruises to the Caribbean, with now nameless men in high-waisted fitted bathing suits and women in one-piece shirred suits sporting cats eye rhinestone-studded sunglasses and bathing caps dotted with gardens of plastic flowers. Palm trees sway overhead while suntanned ladies in summery dresses sit with sweaters draped over their shoulders, and in their hands are drinks capped with real flowers and brightly colored paper umbrellas. The rhinestone sunglasses have been replaced with horn-rimmed cats eyes for the evening. And some of the evening shots are amazing: deep azure and purple sunsets breathtaking in their intensity, the black silhouettes of palm trees, and behind them the frame covered in the glittering signs of night clubs and hot spots of another era.

There are slides of empty offices replete with mid-century modern furniture: teak credenzas, bright orange upholstered minimalist chairs and sofas, and wall to wall carpeting with large crazy geometric patterns like you'd find today in a bowling alley that hasn't been redecorated in half a century. Rows of metal desks with a distinct "Jetsons" feel to them, molded plastic chairs in hideous (and bright) colors and the ugliest paneling you can conjure in your mind's eye.

And then there are the inexplicable ones: dozens upon dozens of shots of an empty store, its displays waiting for customers. Racks of very cool shoes: wingtips for the men and for the ladies flats and heels with sharply pointy toes. There are neat men's suits with tiny lapels and narrow-legged trousers, skinny ties all in a row and endless rows of full skirts that are so detailed in their color and patterns that I swear you can hear their crinolines rustle just from looking at the slides. There are exterior shots of the store during the day, and then of the sign at street side by night, lit up and beckoning customers. And finally there are a few slides of the parking lot full of cars (most of them big black Chevy Bel Air types) and the store with people shopping. I wonder if this family owned the store, but as there are no shots of the now-familiar faces in any of these pictures, it remains a mystery.

While I adore my box of slides and get an incredibly happy rush when I sit and look at them, I can't help but feel a little sad. After all, this was someone's life, carefully labeled (for the most part) and saved in a beautiful case and then one day there was no one who cared about it anymore and it ended up in the filthy cellar at an estate sale run by mean and ugly people who didn't care what was in the box or what it stood for, but simply how much they could get for it. Even in great joy there is always a hint of sadness. Kind of like art.