My father died two years ago, at 72 years of age. After the funeral, and all the administrative details of the will, etc., it fell to me, as his son and only child, to look after and take care of my 70-year-old mother, his widow. Thus it was that I began spending many weekend days at her house, helping her dispose of Dad's worldly possessions.
One weekend, not long after the funeral, I was at Mom's; she was cleaning out the closets -- collecting Dad's clothes to send to the re-sale shops -- and she asked me to start working on cleaning the attic.
The attic was about what you'd expect of a couple of septuagenarians who'd lived in the same house together for over 40 years, and it wasn't helped by the fact that both Mom and Dad had significant pack-rat tendencies. Clutter was piled upon clutter, and, at least at first, it was a challenge just to find a clear space in which to stand, much less to move about.
I started moving things around to clear some space, and make it easier to move around. At the bottom of a pile of boxes, and hidden against a wall, I noticed a box that contained several old photo albums. I pulled the box away from the wall, and prepared to lift it and move it to another spot, so I could start clearing some space in earnest.
I noticed some of the old photo albums had labels on the front, like "Jack, 1972" containing photos of me from the year I was four years old. And I was lost in nostalgic reverie for the next hour or so, looking at photos from my childhood, and recalling the events for which the photographs provided documentation.
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I was just about to close the box and drag myself back to work, when I noticed one more album, at the bottom of the box, labeled "Sailing Trip, 1965". Doing some quick mental arithmetic, I figured that Dad would have been 27 at the time, and Mom 25; they would have been married for two years, give or take, and my own conception was still two years in the future. I'd seen my parents' childhood photos from visits to my grandparents, but this album promised to be fascinating, not least because it touched on the period of time between their wedding and the arrival of their first and only child (that would be me), a period of time about which I knew very little of their lives. So I found a stool to sit on, and started flipping through the old photo album.
The first page contained an 8x10 enlargement of a color photo of four people -- two men and two women -- standing on the deck of a good-sized sailboat (27 feet, if it was the same boat I remembered), waving to the camera. Mom and Dad were easy to pick out, although they were younger-looking than I ever remembered them being. Mom wore a bright-yellow bikini bathing suit, which by today's standards, was pretty tame. Even so, I found myself smiling at the realization that Mom had been a pretty hot number, back in the day. Dad wore a pair of swimming trunks, with one of the old sleeveless 'muscle shirts', and deck shoes with white crew socks.
The other couple I recognized as Mom and Dad's lifelong best friends, the Rutherfords -- Dr. Brian Rutherford, and his wife Gwen, although I'd only ever been allowed to call them Dr. and Mrs. Rutherford. Even now, in my 40s, it would still feel really strange to call them 'Brian' or 'Gwen'. Mrs. Rutherford wore a blue bikini, similar to Mom's, but perhaps just a touch more daring (by mid-60s standards, of course). And Dr. Rutherford dressed the part of the preppy young doctor, with a polo shirt and a captain's hat, signifying his 'rank', and the fact that he owned the boat.
I was sure that I'd been on that very same boat many times. As I said, the Rutherfords have been Mom and Dad's best friends for virtually their whole adult lives, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Even as Dr. Rutherford became increasingly prominent in the community, they had plenty of opportunities to leave our family behind, and chase a more 'upwardly mobile' crowd, but they never did. Even after I was born, and their son Scott, they would still take our family out for day sails several times every summer.
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I turned the page, and the next set of photos documented the provisioning of the boat, for what looked to be a pretty extended sail. In one picture, Dad was carrying a case of beer and Dr. Rutherford had a case of champagne, while Mom lugged a couple large bottles of harder stuff, all of them smiling broadly for the camera, obviously wielded by Mrs. Rutherford. They were certainly laying in plenty of provisions for having a good time.
On the facing page was a hilarious photo, in which Mom was holding a sign that read, "12 Miles From Land" with an arrow, presumably pointing back toward the mainland; Mrs. Rutherford sat next to Mom, shading her eyes with one hand, while her other hand pointed back in the direction of land. At the edge of the photo, Dr. Rutherford, now shirtless, held up a plastic bag containing what looked to be a dozen or so joints. I laughed -- my very conventional parents, and their even more conventional friends, were eager to toke up, but not until they'd passed out of US territorial waters. I tried to imagine my parents being stoned, but the image simply wouldn't come together for me. Even if I didn't see another photograph, this was already a very interesting album, for showing me a side of my parents (pre-parenthood, to be sure) that I would never have imagined.
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On the next page, the first photo was of Mom and Mrs. Rutherford, smiling as they reached behind their necks. I couldn't see what, exactly, they might have been up to, but the next photo told the story, as both women were topless, though with their arms tightly against their sides, trying to minimize their exposure. But in the third photo, they were standing with their arms raised over their heads, still clutching their bras, their firm, round breasts on full display. The photo after that had them gazing coquettishly at the camera, their hands cupped under their breasts, displaying them for the camera.
I was somewhere between a bemused smile and utter astonishment -- Mom? Mrs. Rutherford? Flashing their tits for each other's husbands? REALLY?
The next photo had Dad between the two women, with his arms around them both, fondling a breast of each woman, while grinning impishly. Then Dr. Rutherford, evidently not wanting to miss out on the fun, took his groping-turn on camera in the next photo.
I tried to wrap my head around the idea of my parents and their friends going topless and groping each other's wives, but no matter how hard I tried, it simply wouldn't compute. The photographs were indisputable, though -- that was Mom and Dad, beyond a doubt, and that was Dr. and Mrs. Rutherford. Of course, I also couldn't quite grasp that my parents had ever been carefree 20-somethings, either. By the time my own memories kick in, my parents were already in their 30s, and well settled-down.
I looked at the album -- there were still several pages of photos yet to peruse, and given the progression of the first three pages, I wondered where there could possibly be left to go. With a degree of trepidation, I turned the page again.
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