This weekend nearly the entire Killough clan got to be together on Sunday and (A) no one had had an accident, (B) no one had had an operation and (C) no one had experienced either of the above. We really value these moments more and more as we grow older. Of course, we didn’t realize just how much older we’d grown until I made a raid on the assortment of old photos tucked away beneath my mom’s coffee table Sunday night.

The myriad of hairstyles (and shades) alone was mind-boggling. In some ways, it seems we’ve improved with age. (I suspect my poodle-topped mullet' of the mid-eighties was NOT my best look…)

The evening’s theme turned into &uot;Look where we’ve been and look how we’ve changed&uot;.

In one small black and white snapshot, my twenty-something daddy was sporting a genuine pith helmet, striking a jaunty pose in his old army jeep. Now that jeep was truly a no-frills vehicle, not much fun for trips to mama’s mountain home

but absolutely perfect for a heart-stopping afternoon of jumping terraces on the back forty.

But Pop wasn’t the only one with cool transportation. We checked out the cute chick with ‘two-toned hair’ grinning (as my daddy would say) like a possum' as she clung to the driver of a motor scooter. Yep, it was mama dearest with our favorite male cousin, James Merle, circa 1970.

(Somewhere there’s also a great shot of Mom on horseback looking positively dreamy-eyed in a field of wildflowers…if only I had a picture of her jitterbugging, now that would be priceless!)

Then there were plenty of snaps from that unforgettable trip to the Smokies circa 1966.

There are several shots of bears raiding park trash cans…but not a single one of the very big and angry bear that decided to break up our picnic lunch by a picturesque creek one day. I’m afraid we were much too busy skinning our knees, tossing our sandwiches in the air and cranking up the windows of the station wagon to pause for THAT particular Kodak moment. I don’t think I’ll need a photo to remember that day for a long time to come…

Once on a trip to the Sunshine State of Florida, we all climbed aboard a real glass-bottomed boat in Silver Springs. There was the evidence, one of those souvenir snaps they love to sell to the tourists. Hmm, the shy looking, skinny little kid with the long blonde braids and big eyes looked kind of familiar…wow, can’t believe how skinny I was in those days. (In fact, this became a constant chorus on the part of Sara and me… &uot;Look how little I was then!&uot;)

There were pictures of all the houses and apartments where Benny and I lived during our Air Force years… photos of various beloved family pets, some still here, some departed…snaps of family members enjoying the sights on their visits with us in South Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio.

Sara and I groaned over the assortment of ‘school days’ photos found. Our loving mother never failed to purchase these (no matter how hideous they were and some of mine were pretty awful). We smiled at the cute snaggled-toothed grins of our nieces and nephews and marveled at how grown up they now were. Oh yes, we were waxing nostalgic…

Even my dad, whose favorite pastime of late is looking at the inside of his eyelids, woke up and got wrapped up in browsing through all those vintage snaps and remembering the days of old.

So dig out the albums, the scrap books, the shoe boxes of old photos and take a great walk down memory lane, folks. (The fashions and hairdos alone will make you smile…I promise.)