dianaschnuth

I recently wrote letters to my family, asking them to write down some memories about what life was like growing up, and to share some of their favorite memories or stories. Not about Christmas, just in general. I just got Mom’s via e-mail this evening, so I figured that I should probably write down some of my own memories, as a gesture of appreciation…
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Tuesday 18 Aug 1998 | 12:05am

Fries and I helped Aaron move to BG on Saturday. Three trips: one with his box springs and mattress lashed to the top of the Land Barge, one with his loveseat, and one with his 7-foot sofa. The second trip his car stalled, and the third was in pouring rain. But he’s moved in now, and almost settled in at his new place. Basement apartment, yay! “The Schnuth Cave.”

During the last trip, with the giant couch, we were driving down Dixie Highway into Bowling Green. Any BG person knows that around Kroger, on North Main Street, the road tends to flood in heavy rains. We weren’t privy to that yet, though, and were confused by the police and general chaos happening by the Pharm. As I recall, it was reminiscent of a Bill Cosby skit:

“What’s the sign say?”

“The sign says, ‘High Water’.”

*sploosh*

We ended up driving over the submerged curb into the Pharm parking lot to skirt the massive puddle that was North Main that evening.

After successfully moving the sofa into the Schnuth Cave, I believe Kris declared that he was going down to BW3 (as it was then called) to get a drink.

Scans courtesy of Kris Fries. I’m so glad to have digital copies of these priceless memories!

[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].


My drumcorps buddy Paul just started a Flickr account and, like so many new Flickrites, has started scanning and uploading photos from his past.

I had been using my Flickr account for artsy photos I was proud of… but Paul inadvertently made me rethink that decision. So, I’ve started scanning and uploading old photos of my own, starting in 2002. (I was going to start at the end of college in 2001 and work backwards, but 2002 was still a lot of fun.)

Expect more retrospective photos in the near future!

PS – Kris. I must borrow and scan your photo album with the photos of Aaron’s move out of Lake of the Schnuth. Especially the one with the giant long brown couch strapped to the top of the Taurus station wagon. Holy shit, that was priceless.

Aaron and I were talking about how it’s so easy to spend an entire afternoon or evening on YouTube, just surfing from video to video in a particular genre.

I just spent two hours watching clips of Sesame Street, The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

I could go back and link to all my favorite stuff, but I think maybe you should just go and search on Sesame Street and see what you turn up. OK, I guess I do want to share a couple things…

• The Sesame Street closing credits I remember best. I’d forgotten that Fridays had different closing credits than weekdays, and I’d forgotten all about Barkley.
• I’ll Miss You, Mr. Hooper, where the grown-ups explain to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper isn’t coming back. (I’d always heard that it wasn’t long after this episode that David passed away, as well, but the cast had to explain it away, since they’d so recently had an episode about death. According to Wikipedia, though, Northern Calloway didn’t pass away until 1990.)

Everybody has their own favorite Sesame Street bits, but OMG. The King of Eight, the Ladybugs Picnic, the series on pollution (that totally freaked me out as a young child), the lost kid on the bicycle that passes all the crazy psychedelic shit, Bert doin’ the pigeon… Wow.

I am convinced that Sesame Street was and is quality television. I mean, the Electric Company clips I watched seemed kind of cheesy in that 70’s sort of way. The 3-2-1 Contact bits were actually OK, although they were initially meant for an older audience, anyway. But the Sesame Street bits pulled me in visually and with music, although some of the songs were pretty cheesy.

Oh, and did you know that a hurricane hit Sesame Street? Big Bird’s nest got all destroyed, and you can buy the DVD to see him deal with his loss and see how his friends help him rebuild his nest. Outside of the typically cheesy musical song-and-dance numbers, I think that kind of sums up one of the neatest aspects of Sesame Street: it takes real-life stuff that a kid might come across in his life, and has the grown-up characters explain it in kid terms. Death, hurricanes, holidays, the Beatles…

Buh-Buhbuh-Buh-Buhbuh, Letter B…

(Swear to god, I knew that version of the song long before I knew why it was funny.)

One of my earlist vague memories is of being held by my mother at an open door during a rainstorm. I remember the feel of the mist on my face, the sound of occasional thunder and the flash of lightning, the constant patter of rain, and the clean smell on the wind. As I got older, Mom would stand with me at the door, and I remember her telling me how pretty the rain is.

Mom had had a bad experience with a thunderstorm in her youth, and she consciously tried to make me feel calm and pleasant about thunderstorms. It worked — even now, I prefer to have the windows open during a good rain, to smell the freshness and hear the thunder and the water coming down.

There’s a nice, mild rain happening outside, with constant low rumbling thunder and a gentle breeze. I’ve opened the windows in the basement, where the overhang from the upper floor will keep the rain from coming in. The only thing that would make me happier right now would be a porch and a swing. That way, I could stick my feet out in the rain, like I did during those perfect rainy evenings at my apartment on South Main St. in BG, during the summer of 1999.

Right now, in this moment, I’m content.