Pam and the Pug in the Snow

It's been a while since I've posted any of the Pam films for you. Yesterday, I was talking to Rae who has two of the cutest pugs on the planet. I realized that I have Pam film with a pug pup in it and wanted to share.

Here are Pam and the Pug in the Snow straight out of 1963.



We don't get many fluffy, tree coating snows here so it was probably a real treat for Pam and her family. Does anyone but me remember hanging out clothes on snowy days? You'd bring them in and they were frozen stiff like boards! Popsicle pants! Good times.

Background music is by the incomparable Vince Guaraldi.

For the rest of the Pam films cataloged so far, click here.

I'd also like to take the time to give a shout-out to my brother who is having a birthday today. Yep, he was born on April Fool's Day and as you can imagine he's gotten some ribbing about it through the years! He's also moving into a sweet 1970's house today with his lovely wife and kids.


I hope that he takes time out for cake.
Or at least candles.


Hope that you all are having a great Sunday!

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Pam's Christmas 1961

I wanted to share this bit of Christmas past from the Pam films with you today. The part where she dances with her doll is so sweet and I know that some of you vintage toy and doll collectors will recognize that tiny little kitchen set - glorious! This film was taken in 1961 when Pam was five years old. I wish that she were still around. I would have loved to have met her and shared these films with her this Christmas.

For more backstory on the Pam films, please go here.




Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Christmas with Pam and Family 1958

I'm absolutely in love with this Christmas reel showing Pam and her family. Pam would have been a little over two years old here. The woman in the plaid pants is her Mom and the man in the red sweater is her Dad. I thank that from the sequence of events and decor and wardrobe changes, they probably opened presents at two different locations: her family home and then her grandparents' home.

This is pretty much how I've always pictured Christmas in 1958 to be. Red ruffled underpants and cowboy outfits. Enjoy!



And as a p.s. - thanks SO much to those of you who donated and passed the word to help get postcards to assist in finding Skippy Lou. Our goal was reached and the postcards will land in mailboxes on Tuesday. All fingers and paws crossed for her safe return home soon. We're still working day and night and hope that we can soon report to you that we've found her. Please send prayers and good thoughts.

Until next time,
x's and o's ,
Eartha

Pam's Third Birthday and Christmas 1959

This film shows Pam on her third birthday with her parents and all of her grandparents. There are also some beautiful scenes at the end with Pam and her Mom decorating the Christmas tree and some great shots of some nice Southern home cooking. And don't miss the glimpses of a super cool red and white kitchen.

This was the first of the Pam films that I bought. Mister Kitsch and I set off on a hunt to find an 8mm projector that weekend after we bought the first film. When I first laid eyes on the pastel sweetness at the beginning of this film, I was hooked. I began brainstorming to come up with a way to get the money to buy them all. In the end, I would go and buy a few each time that I got some spending money. As fate would have it, they always stayed on the shelf waiting for me to bring them all home.

Let's go back to 1959, shall we?



Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Pam and her folks go to Missouri

This one is from 1958 and shows a lot of Pam's Mom (who is usually behind the camera) along with her Dad and several other relatives.

Pam and the Rabbits

Hey all,

It's time for installment number one of the Pam films.

In this one, you'll see Pam when she was just shy of two years old in July of 1958.





She was so cute, wasn't she? I promise not to give a lot of unneeded commentary on the films but just to associate you with the people that you'l usually see: The man in the film with the rabbits and the lady that you see him wrestle with (he seems to do that a lot) are her grandparents on her father's side. They always seemed to have a lot of rabbit hutches so maybe they sold rabbits?

Pam's Mom will usually be behind the camera but there will be some films later on where we'll see a little bit of her too. The man smoking the cigarettes is Pam's father. The other two older folks in the video (the lady and man on the porch) seem to be the other set of grandparents. And you'll also see a smattering of other relatives as well. She seemed to have been a very loved little girl.

The Pam Films

The Mister and I spent yesterday watching and digitizing Pam's films. I figured I'd dream about her last night and I surely did. Though in my dreams, she was an adult. It may have been because I told the Mister during the archiving that I hoped that Pam was watching along with us in the next life and smoothly guiding the films through the projector's creaky old unpredictable mechanisms.


There are thirteen films that show tiny portions of six years of her life. In total, a mere fifty minutes of her story. There were so many times that I wanted to shriek out with glee over certain scenes but had to clasp my hands over my mouth so that I wouldn't be recorded along with the audio.





Since most of the scenes show her at family gatherings, I'm going to post one each Sunday. I remember Sundays as when my family always gathered together for food and laughter, watching the young kids play until dirty and limp while the relatives told the same stories over and over. Then we'd all pile into cars for home with our empty casserole dishes, exhausted but happy.

Without fail, the adults would yell out, "Y'all come go with us..." to those staying behind. Or an abbreviated "Y'all come! ". Then to complete the call-and-response, the answer would come back, "Nah...I guess we'd better stay here..". As a kid, I always wondered if anyone ever did jump in the car and come with - as I'd scoot sideways on the seat a little to make room for any possible stowaways. But as an adult, I realize that what made these visits special was not only the hellos.. but also the goodbyes.




Though I feel sad to have watched the last of Pam's films, I look forward to sharing them with you all. Y'all come...


Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Pam

I love to collect other peoples' memories. Their painted portraits and photographs. Their slides and films. Their carefully penned letters and their scribbles on the fronts of cookbooks. I don't know why but I'm able to completely engross myself in their worlds even if I've never met them. I've always been really interested in people and their stories. Even if I can only get mere clues to those stories from the visual snippets that I find.

Recently, the Mister and I were walking around a really bad flea market and were not only near the end of the aisles but also the end of our ropes from the frustration of looking at horribly boring merchandise. It was then that I saw them - a large pile of 8mm films.



I went over to them and started reading the handwritten notes on the outside:

1963 Florida
Pam and I Decorating The Tree
Pam's Third Birthday Party
Pam and The Rabbits
Pam's Fourth Birthday and the Christmas Snow

There were thirteen films in all and they ranged from the mid-nineteen fifties to the mid-nineteen sixties. I was absolutely dying to see what was on those films. It felt like I was meant to find them and they had this incredible magnetic pull. Which was strange because I didn't even own an 8mm projector. And I'd seen 8mm films for sale before and had never taken them home. Before I knew it, I'd bought several of them and the weekend ended with yes, the purchase of an old film projector. Before long, Pam and her family's memories were playing on our living room wall:






























Bit by bit, I went back and got the rest of those films. I've learned since that Pam, the sweet little girl on the films has passed away and that the items from her home were cast off.

Knowing of her early death, it's sad to look at her and her family in the happy times in these films. I feel like I know what's going to happen to her and I want so badly to leap inside of the movie's flickering reels and tell her to enjoy life to it's fullest - to soak it up and then when she thinks that she's had her fill, to soak it up even more. I can't help but wonder why her family didn't keep the films. Maybe it was too sad for them to see her there too.

I'll treasure her movies - her memories - and take good care of them and one day, her collection will merge into mine and be found by someone else - and to them, it will seem like she and I are family. Maybe that's why I found the films that day. In a flea market that I don't usually go to - on that last aisle, on the last shelf.



What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. ~George Eliot