Operation Slideshow

After my parents passed away and I sold their home, I took custody of a very large, very old moving box containing tray after tray of 35mm slides. My uncle was the family photographer, and...doing the math here...he's been gone over 40 years. So nearly everything in the box is at least 50-60 years old, and there's well over 1,000 slides. I was very happy to have this enormous box of family history, and had this bright idea that I would sort them all and transfer them to digital format. I actually bought one of those little slide viewer thingies and a gadget to transfer them, and reviewed about half a dozen trays before giving it up in frustration.

The first trays I reviewed were a hot mess - random pictures of scenery from one of my uncle's many fishing trips were mixed with family photos, the timeline was scrambled, the content was scrambled. I suspected my parents had at one point thrown all the slides on the floor and picked them up at random. My uncle the avid photographer was also an avid fisherman who took fishing trips to Canada quite often, and apparently took pictures of every freaking tree in every forest. I threw away at least a hundred slides of anonymous trees, saved the photos of humans, tagged about six trays as reviewed, and put the project aside for another day. That was about a year and a half ago. The trays have occupied the bottom shelf of the bookcase in my office ever since. Every time I see them I think I really need to do something with them one of these days.

I saw them the other day and suddenly had an inspiration! I happen to know a young girlchild who LOVES looking at old family photos! I suspect she would also enjoy using that nifty little slide viewer gadget! So when she asked me if she could sleep over this weekend, I said "YES, my darling child! Of COURSE you may! In fact, WE are going to start working on a Special Project together!"

We'll see how this goes. She may feel the same way I did about this Special Project after a tray or two and put the viewer down in favor of Harry Potter and baking cookies, BUT, if she enjoys it, I have a plan: She will make the first cut reviewing the slides: Is it just a bunch of trees? Trash. Are there people or pets or houses in it? Pass it to Grandma for identifying, labeling and sorting. I pulled out a modest couple of hundred slides to start. We'll see how it goes.