J is for....

Janna! Actually, when I was growing up, it seemed that J was for everyone! A very high proportion of my childhood friends had names beginning with the letter J -- Jennifer, Joanie, two Julies, Joey, my cousins John and Joe. I thought about using pictures of all of them, but then realized that they probably wouldn't like their high school (or even grade school) pictures broadcast over the internet!

So - J is for me! I hope you enjoy this little trip through my first five years!

If you want a closer look at any of these pictures, click on the mosaic to go to Flickr, then click on the photo name in the caption to go to the individual photo on Flickr.

The upper left photo is the first picture of me that I know of -- it's my mom when she was pregnant with me. This photo's been around a while and is kind of hacked up, but notice the contraption on the left side of the photo -- that's what TVs looked like in the mid-1950s.

Top row middle: that's me at 2 months.

Top row right: Mom, Dad, and me, when I was about 7 months old

Middle left: I love this picture! In spite of the 1960 written in the margin in my grandmother's hand, I think it's more likely this picture was taken in late 1958. The baby on the far right, my cousin Teresa, was born in February 1958. I'm the second little girl from the left -- the unhappy one! The unhappy little boy just right of me is my cousin John. He's a year old than me, and when we were little, I followed him around like a puppy. The older boy with a smirk on his face is John's brother Steve. I suspect he had done something to get us into trouble! The little girl on the far left is my sister Karen and the men are my Grandpa and my Uncle Jerry (who appears to have his pant legs rolled up).

Center: Me, obviously more recently.

Middle right: This one is my favorite. Dad, Karen (left) and me (right). My sister Karen was 11 and a half months younger than me, and was killed in a car accident when I was four and a half and she was three and a half. I actually have a lot of memories of her. I remember (more than once, I think) sitting in the photo booth at the J.C. Penney's where my dad worked. When my dad passed away, we found the top photo in his wallet. A few months later, cousin's wife mailed Mom the other, which my cousin had found with his late mother's belongings. I don't know what happened to the other two photos which would have been in the strip, but I've Photoshopped these two back together.

Bottom left: Me on the left and Karen on the right.

Bottom center: This is the classic 1950s photo -- the subject posed next to a car! I think it was probably taken in the Spring or Summer of 1961, just before I turned 5. I don't know whose car it is, but I know it's in Grandma and Grandpa's lane.*

Bottom right: In front of my grade school, one block from our house, about the time I started kindergarten.


* Lane = long driveway out in the country. Does everyone everywhere call them that?