Over Labor Day weekend of 2017, I went to Pittsburgh to visit my aunt and cousin. My friend Molly also came along.
On Saturday night of our visit, my cousin asked me if I wanted to go through old family photos or go to a lesbian bar to listen to a band. I opted for going through old family photos.
We laughed at my grandpa’s one and only photo of him wearing shorts which was a rarity.
There were a lot of photos of people I didn’t know. In fact, I don’t even know if my aunt knew who some of the people were in the photos.
We found photos of my parents’ wedding which by the way when I asked my mom who the two male attendants were she was unable to tell me. I guess one might have been the choir director at the church my grandpa was the pastor of back in 1971. The other man was a mystery.
Then we found this beauty.
This photo was taken the summer of 1981. I was 6 years old in the photo. One of my aunts was visiting from California so we had a reunion in Lancaster, Pennsylvania which was close to where we were living at that time.
We didn’t have a lot of money so Mom got white shirts and red iron on letters. She made shirts for all of those who came to the reunion. I also have a photo of my cousin and aunts in the shirts. The only one who was spared was my cousin, J., the one who wanted to take me to the lesbian bar. She was only about 6 months so Mom didn’t make her a shirt.
Since there is a picture of J. as a baby being held by her mother wearing one of these fashion forward shirts, that is how we know the date of the photos.
During this reunion, we also went to Hershey Park. I rode my first roller coaster while we were at the amusement park. I hope I wasn’t wearing this shirt on the roller coaster.
Oh, and check out the stylish bowl cut hair cut my sister had at that time. My hair – well, let’s not talk about it.
Stay kind!
Believe in the Magic Traci Diary 
The shirts were a really creative solution.
I am suddenly overcome with the urge to make my children tshirts with their names ironed on. Too funny!
Nice shirts. It’s fun to look through old pictures and see how times have changed.
I once worked at a theme park (in the 80s, incidentally) and family reunions where everyone wore matching shirts was quite the thing. There was a group who attended a music show one evening and told my friend who worked there that the whole group would be going to the theme park the next day, saying “You’ll know which group is ours – we will all be tied together by our belts!” So see, your experience actually COULD have been worse!
I love the line about having a choice between looking at old photos or going to a lesbian bar.