Bathing Caps

I know that's a strange heading for a blog entry.   What prompted it, you ask?   Yesterday my sister and I looked at some old home movies that were converted to DVDs.   In the home movies, there were a couple of times in which we were swimming.  In all of them, when we were in public pools, we were wearing swim caps.  Bathing caps.  Whatever we used to call them.

   

Bathing caps were rubber smelling, tight fitting skull caps after a fashion.  They fit very tightly on the head.  All hair had to be tucked in.  Mine were mostly just that, a cap.  They were sort of puckery, I suppose to make them more stretchable..  My mother had rubber flowers on hers.  If I ever had to use my mom's swim cap, I was pretty embarrassed. Yesterday while looking at the movies we (my sister and I) both agreed that our mother's swim cap was pretty.  I guess our taste has changed- we're older now.

I it so hard to believe that we were ever so young and thin.  Dale was in a lot of the movies as well.  That's strange too.  So many of the people in our old home movies are dead now.

All of the babies are grown up.  Many have children of their own.  All of the young people- teens and adults are old now.  Older anyway.

And the generations.  One minute we are watching a movie of a cute cousin toddling down the sidewalk in front of our grandparent's house.  Grandma loving the baby and smiling.  In the next minute, the same cousin is an adult.  Married and a mother.  And now (not in the home movies) that same cousin is a grandmother.

All of my uncles on my father's side are dead and gone now as are all but one of my aunts.  Only two of the 5 children born to my maternal grandparents are still alive.  

All of the parents and children doing so many things together.   The oldest movies we watched were taken in Warwick Village in Virginia when I was probably three or four.  Then Afghanistan.  What a poor country.  Very little auto traffic.  Lots of bikes and camels.

The most recent movie we watched was from a family reunion in Michigan in 2001.  Shortly after my brother died and less than a month before 9-11.  My mom and all of her siblings were there. And my cousins.   So many cousins.  And the children of my cousins!    My mom was in a wheel chair.  My sister and I taking were care of our mom.  She had all of her mental faculties, but was disabled by strokes.

It made me think of my own family.  All the time we spent caring for babies, kids, and now adults who are tending to themselves. 

Can you be nostalgic about the future?   I guess now.  I guess it's wistfulness I was thinking about.  I was wondering what the future holds.   Who will be in the pictures and movies in the years to come.  Which of my children will tend to us in our old age?   No,  they are not obliged to do anything.  But in my family of aunts and uncles and cousins, being a parent and an adult child go hand in hand.

My sister and I took my mom to doctor's appointments.  We visited her.  We were on the phone with her almost every day.

Nick went to his parent's place at least every week.  At first they would go to a restaurant together.  Later to one of the eateries in their building.  Nick took them both to doctor and dentist appointments.   They didn't ask him.  He did it because he wanted to.  And he wanted his parents know that he would help them when they needed him.  It was the same with my mom and my sister and I.

Currently, Nick's ankle and foot are really sore (gout).  My knee hurts (I need a knee replacement).  we look like an old decrepit couple of fogies.  I know that right now we both have temporary setbacks.  But one day we will be really old......