Luis N Zumarraga

 The last year, I took hundreds of slides found around the house, in old drawers, in old photograph albums, and had them printed to file at Rockville Centre photo. They were able to transform the negatives into sharp images, and send them to my email. Below is one picked more or less at random.

The photo includes, from left to right, my brother Duane, my Uncle Jerry, my brother Joe, my sister Loring (on Jerry's lap) and Aunt Rose. I was not born yet. Duane and Joe are wearing a toy of some sort on their heads, possibly brought by Uncle Jerry and Aunt Rose, who at one point owned a toy store. The two would visit from their home in Stuvuysent town.

Aunt Rose was my father's younger sister. She had met Jerry as a child, since Jerry hung around the LaBarbera home in Brooklyn, and was friendly with all. He worked in sales for clothing stores and their own toy and stationary store. He had served in Africa during WWII. He was recalled for his wit. Growing up, I would visit their apartment in Stuvusent town, and memories there playing a skittles like rolling ball game, jumping up and down on their bed so that Jerry declared, "no more shenanigans!", and breaking a glass bookend. They were fun visits, along with my sister. They did not have children. Regularly they would send me gifts, including, when I was in first grade, a timex watch being held by a stuffed figure, that I worshipped, with its think grey strap. It seemed quite impressive to have such a serious and adult like object as my own.

Rose tended to be demure, or more softspoken than other peers. She may have manifested some sense of privacy and reserve that I can recognize in some other family members. That she and Jerry were so well dressed was normal, or possibly here, accentuated since they tended to visit on holidays. Duane, Jerry, and Rose are now gone, but this an agreeable snapshot in time, where good will, fun times, and shared interests reigned in the household.  

Here, from the batch of photos, is another, of my Dad, probably about 1962, where he was about 50. This was at one of our vacation spots, possibly the Pocono Manor, in the Pocono Mountains. 

Dad often dressed in suit and tie. At 50, he was still very strong. An entirely protective and kindly individual, I couldn't know what he had endured in previous years, including losing his mother at five and then five years in the Pacific during WWII. In the reserves, he had departed Fort Dix shortly after Pearl Harbor. Of the family members, he certainly was the most physically prepossessing, with a mesomorphic, though still somewhat lanky, build. He had rowed some at Cornell, and always enjoyed working around the home, laying a stone backyard. Being surrounded by stones steps and walls does not really contradict his nature. He was very strong, and I recall him twice being at gunpoint in our living room, and talking the malfeasant out of his quest for drugs. My dad had his doctors practice in the back of our house, as doctors did back in those days. So, here he stands, over 60 years ago, unassumedly at the top of steps while probably making plans for the rest of the day with the family.