Traveling through Time on Kodachrome
– Jim Wirth
I’m sure many of you have childhood memories of your parents pulling out the family vacation slides and telling everyone to gather around to watch the show. While some may have dreaded these family slide shows, I always loved them. I can still remember the huge metal tube with built in stand that held the retractable screen. And the texture of the screen, like it had been sprayed with silvery white sand. Then there were the long thin metal boxes with latches that protected all of our family slides. These were kept neatly stacked in the hall closet across from Dad’s office, which we always called the “den.” I loved the whole process, which has been completely lost in this age of digital cameras, flash memory cards, Snapfish and email.
I still enjoy pulling out the old family slides to reminisce about times long past. Everything seemed so much simpler and more innocent then. There is something about the look of old slide photos, especially Kodachromes, that fills me with an intense feeling of nostalgia. So, I am starting a new blog category here on OpenRoad.TV called Traveling Through Time, to share some of the wonderful old slides that I’ve been able to find. While they are not slides from my own family’s past, they were taken by families like mine who loved to document their lives with film.
To kick off this new category, I thought it would be nice to take you back to a time where gas prices were under 20 cents per gallon, and you fueled up at the “service station,” where in addition to filling your tank, the attendant cleaned your windows and checked your tire pressure. So travel back in time with me to Sedona, Arizona for a brief rest stop at the Chevron service station…
<click on the slide to enlarge the photo>
<click on the slide to enlarge the photo>
June 13th, 2008 at 8:20 am
This is a great idea Jim. I have the same slide-show memories. We had a “sparkley white sand” screen in a blue steel tube. Setting it up was a wrestling match in which I was outsized. We had the metal cartridges full of slides that had been placed in little metal frames. I remember the first slides being upside down, or backwards, or in the wrong order. At some point, the slides would jam like a typewriter. I remember the projector’s smell and dust floating in the bright light. Some of my extended family members were world travelers, and I looked forward to seeing their images of exotic locations, though childhood energy had me squirming in my seat after about 30 minutes. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I look forward to future installments.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:00 am
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