Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Finding Baby Leif in a 1976 Super 8 Movie

Hiding within old super 8 silent movies and old videos from the 1980s and 1990s are probably dozens if not hundreds of images of Leif and the rest of us. Seldom seen, as we don't project them and haven't digitized them, they are an almost unknown mine of treasure.

I recently purchased an old movie projector to be sure I can project, and hopefully someday digitize, those old movies, though heaven knows when that will happen. Since the thrift shop where I purchased the projector didn't know for sure how well it worked since they didn't have any film to project, I had to at least try it out.

The film I pulled out was from the spring of 1976. Leif was just a year old. As I projected it on a wall, I snapped this photo with my digital camera. It's hard to imagine just how little real information is in a still as small as 8 mm, and how grainy it is when blown up, but you can still see what a beautiful baby he was.

I think this was probably Easter dinner, and both boys were in it, Peter very animated, Leif rather bewildered and sweet. How I wish those old films had the sound to go with them so we could have heard the action, too.

I hope that in the new year I'll have a chance to look at the old films and find more "photos" of my family.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Leif Playing Soccer as a High School Freshman

I wonder how many new photos of Leif I will find as the years go by. This past week, I opened a trunk filled with old home movies on reels and Leif's high school yearbooks were in it as well. I've looked through the ones from Puerto Rico, and Northwood Junior High, but somehow hadn't really looked at Highland Park High School and Manhattan High School.

Leif wasn't in a lot of activities and didn't have a lot of photos in the yearbooks. He was involved with music (playing and constructing electric guitars) out of school, but he always played soccer, from the time he was just a little tyke until he was a junior in high school, and the only reason he stopped then was because when we moved to Puerto Rico and he went out for the team, initially he couldn't run in the high heat and dense humidity and sprained his ankle. It was a shame. He missed playing, and he was really good.

So, finding this photo of him as a high school freshman in the 1990 Highland Park High School yearbook was a treat. It shows him jumping up to head butt a soccer ball during one of their  games. I wish it were a video, because it's hard to imagine him jumping so high in such a straight posture, but there he is.

I don't know exactly when the picture was taken, only that it was his freshman year in the 1990 yearbook. The ball almost looks like a moon in the sky.