While my wife unexpectedly had the afternoon off to go shopping with a 41-year old friend who looks like she’s still 31, hours after eating with friends, one who’s 24 and looks 24, with her father, 57 going on 58, I dug through the material my grandfather left behind, including a box of slides.

Thanks to a simple return policy by Wolverine Data, I received a working F2D14 scanner in the mail this afternoon.

Pulling a few sample slides, I scanned them and provide them here as samples that have sat for decades in a US Navy sea chest tucked in the back of an outdoor utility closet in south Florida:

My grandfather, the pirate

My mother, me and my father

Four generations of the Eldridge clan – Dad, his mother, me and Great-Granddad

My grandmother at a hotel swimming pool, elegantly dressed as usual

An artistic photo by my grandfather

Monticello, when women and girls wore skirts, sweaters and pretty smiles.