Skip and Cranky in the 80s

I recently got inspired to start scanning and posting old family photos to Facebook when I saw an old friend had started this on his Facebook account. I found his photos very interesting, especially the ones within one generation. The older ones, not so much, though probably interesting to his immediate family.

I've pulled out all the old family photos my parents have shared with me. I also began pulling together the photos from my youth and that Skip and I have taken over the years. Although my original intent was to scan family photos from prior generations, I have been drawn to the ones that I'm in or that Skip is in. As usual, I am my own favorite subject!

I thought I'd post some snaps from the 3 decades in which Skip and I have been together, the 80s, 90s and the 00s. Too much for one post, so I'm breaking them up over 3.

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Skip and I met in August 1981. We began living together two weeks later. We were both 25 when we met. In the 80s, we moved 9 times. Each move was to a different apartment until our final move in 1989 when we moved to the house we live in now. Our apartments were in Boston or surrounding cities. We each had a number of job changes, as well. Skip was a systems analyst, a bartender and bar manager and a chef. In 1989, she retired due to her MS. I was a secretary, student, programmer then consultant.

During most of this decade, Skip's symptoms, if she had any, were minor. She loved to golf, so I learned how to play, though I was never good at it. We played with her father, who also wasn't very good at it. Once, we vacationed with Skip's parents at a golf resort in New Hampshire. We loved to take long weekends at bed and breakfast inns in Vermont and go antiquing. We had a good-sized circle of friends and we loved having them over for small dinner parties where we ate a lot of great food and drank a lot of wine. Skip could drive and was very independent, going out and about on her own with regularity.

This photo of me and the one below of Skip were taken in October 1981, on our first weekend trip to Provincetown, MA. It's on the tip of Cape Cod. Wow, so young!

These photos were taken in our last apartment, probably in 1987. Taken by a photographer who was trying to publish a book of photos featuring gay and lesbian couples. The book was never published. Skip is in her classic attire from that era: polo shirt, v-neck sweater vest, jeans and Reebok sneakers. I can't believe how long my hair was.

For our 7th anniversary, we put together a little dinner party at a gay restaurant in Boston. Our roommate took some lovely photos of us before we all headed out to dinner.

In 1989, at our current home, with our first dachshund, Sadie.