Our daughter Zoe came home for the weekend to pack up her clothes and clean out her closet. She hasn’t used most of them since she left for college in 2011. It was time. High on a shelf she found a long forgotten camcorder and some 8mm movie cassettes. There was also a smaller Sony camcorder with a bag of mini DVC tapes. At the time she and I were focusing on the mountain of clothes to tackle so we set the cameras aside. It was a good thing because when I hooked them up to our TV on Monday I lost an entire day to corny smiles and sweet memories!
As soon as I plugged in the first tape I was greeted by the faces of our 2-yearold Ben, 4-year-old Jack and 9-year-old Zoe from 13 years ago. Ben had just broken his arm in two places and he was telling his Daddy how it happened. (He jumped off his little tyke table…. maybe 15 inches high.) Jack and Zoe were wrestling in the bathroom and as soon as Mike pointed the camera at them they told the whole story. Ben was pretending he was at the swimming pool and dove instead of landing on his feet. His left arm broken at the wrist and the elbow. Ouch!
In the next tape we jumped ahead two years and they were all playing with a tiny black lab puppy. She was a Father’s Day/birthday surprise for Daddy who was out of town. Zoe was asking so sweetly if she had to make out her will because Dad was probably going to bury her in the back yard when he found out we had bought him a puppy. In the next scene Mike is sitting in a chair with his eyes closed as the excited kids are placing the puppy on his lap. His face says it all. “Sandy no…”I had to turn off the camera so he could have a moment in private. Lakota has now been with our family for 12 years and she has been the love of his life.
There are hours and hours of memories. Barbara Lee School of Dance, gymnastic classes for all three, Zoe’s school plays, Jack and Ben’s T-ball and bathtub times. Christmases with the Anderson and the Holthaus families…Great Grandma Margaret, who died in 2005, sitting among all the wrapping paper and chaos. A memorable trip to Isle Royale to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday. My brother Gary, now gone for three years, carrying around his son Travis along the hiking paths on the island. Ben’s preschool graduation with all his friends that are now freshmen at AHS.
There were corny smiles every time you pointed the camera at the kids; I was usually behind the camera and avoiding the lens whenever possible. These were special days. I am not sure why we stopped using the camera. Someone probably got a new phone that could take videos or something but I am so glad to have these movies and I wish I had more. They capture something more than corny smiles; they capture the faces and the voices of my children’s youth.
Let my soul smile through
my heart and my heart
smile through my eyes, that
I may scatter rich smiles in
sad hearts.
Paramahansa
Yogananda
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
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