The Vintage Curator

 My memories of the day after my 16th birthday present as slides on a vintage stylish slide projector. Each moment reduced to isolated fragments of a story represented on individual 35 mml picture slides. I see them every year, on the anniversary of this event when I must exhume the slides from their prism-shaped storage box. Mechanically, I flip the projector’s toggle switches, watching and waiting for the telltale thrum of the fan. Watching and waiting for illumination. Each year, it is the same. The incandescent bulb broadcasts each picture of this odd, soundless coming -of- age story, presenting it across the dark recesses of recollection.

The first picture depicts girls from the sophomore high school class of Springside School for Girls as they step off the chartered tour bus they have ridden from Philadelphia to Baltimore, Maryland. Now we would call them privileged girls. Each one is miffed by the Headmistress’s last minute decision to break from tradition. Instead of sending the class to the Big Apple, as was customary for the Sophomores, they have been redirected to Baltimore, Maryland. Looks of disgust and dismay are stamped on some of their faces as an enthusiastic looking Park Ranger, dressed in full regalia, welcomes them to the visitor’s center at Fort McHenry.

Switch to next slide. In the second slide, the girls appear to be pointing their fingers at a portable screen, and laughing at a clip from an old movie. Without the accompanying sound, it’s uncertain, but the girls seem to be watching clips from the movie adaptation of the musical comedy 1776. This theory seems plausible, because a young William Daniels is dressed as James Adams, and he appears to be miming a song. Presumably, the girls are snickering in the picture, because they know him as Mr. Feeney, a wise teacher from a TV Show called Boy Meets World. Cut to the next slide.

In the third slide, the movie clip is over. The girls are still in the makeshift movie theater at the National Park’s Reception Center. They are standing in front of the chairs, rough as sandpaper, with hands over hearts. The room, dark in the previous slide, has been illuminated. The curtains that hang on one entire wall of the room have been drawn. In the far off distance, a wavering American Flag, reduced by the image to the size of a pinprick. With the knowledge that Fort McHenry is famous for inspiring Francis Scott Keys to write the poem known as the Star Spangled Banner, it can be inferred that the girls are listening to a warbled recording of the National Anthem. Next Slide.

The tour of the rest of the Pentagonal Fort must be over. A group of weary girls, myself among them, are standing by a dormant recreation of a war-worn cannon. We are looking out over a body of water that is out of frame. The chaperones have faded into the periphery. The backdrop for the scene depicted in this picture is a preternaturally beautiful day. The golden sun is beaming in the turquoise sky. I appear to have turned my head to say something to one of my friends. There are no captions, but I remember what I said in that moment. I was telling my friend that the tranquility of the day was making me nervous. Like something bad was going to happen. Cut to the next slide.

In this picture the beauty of the day has been marred. A crack cuts across the photo, damaging it irreparably and forever. Each of the tour groups from our school that dotted the shoreline in the previous slide have crowded around one girl. (She can’t be seen in the last picture because she has just come from the reception center). She is breathlessly telling the rest of the girls something. Again, there is no sound, but the screwed up eyes and downturned faces of the girls on the receiving end of her message, signal that they are deeply disturbed by what they are hearing. I wish that I needed a caption to remember what was being said. I wish I didn’t have to tell you. This picture is capturing the moment when she said, “Someone blew up the World Trade Center!! We have to go back inside!” Cut to the next slide.

In this slide, the girls from outside are joining a group of chaperones and tour guides. None of the other groups scheduled for the day have arrived. The hustle and bustle of the tourist center has been brought to a complete standstill. The girls from outside have reentered the building to find these adults clustered around a small 13 inch TV. The image on the TV Screen can be seen just over my shoulder. Initially, the viewer might think that this cluster is watching a blank, gray screen. A second glance paints a clearer picture. What they are watching, with fingers to lips and furrowed brows, is actually the Second Tower, once one half of a whole landmark to a nation, reduced to billowing ash and soot. Please, Cut to the next damn slide. In this image, a huddle of teachers stands a few feet away from the tour bus that all the girls have boarded. The teachers are conferring with the bus driver, a middle-aged woman in her chauffeur’s uniform, complete with vest and cap. Looking backwards through the lens of time, it’s clear that there is no precedence for this. What should they do? A consensus has been reached. Slide.

The picture on this slide shows what was happening on the bus while the adults were talking. It only shows my section of the bus. It looks like a tableau. Girls frozen in time as a borrowed cellphone changes hands. I think I have just spoken with my mother to tell her that we are ok. We are on the way home. She is angry with me. Cellphones were banned from the trip. Furthermore, when this picture was taken, having a personal phone was still somewhat of a luxury. So, I didn’t pack the beefy Nokia Phone my family reserved for an occasion of an emergency. I will never be allowed to follow this rule again. Later, when I am an adult, and a teacher myself, I will not enforce it. I will look the other way when my students reveal their phones. Cut to the next slide.

In this picture we have made it back to school. We are back in good ole Philadelphia, PA! We are off the bus. Our parents are waiting, arms outstretched, prepared to enfold us in embraces of gratitude. Of all the Upper School classes that had been on field trips, we are the only ones who made it back before the roads became impassable. In retrospect this is quite a feat, especially since we stopped at a rest stop, much to the chagrin of our intrepid bus driver, Marge. This shot shows the brief moment when we think that the worst is behind us. Little do we know that we have returned to a home that is a newly destabilized Nation.I don’t need to show you slides from the days that followed. Anyone alive in those days is familiar with the loop. Skip Ahead to the slide from 16 years later.

In this particular image, it is the day after my 32nd birthday. I am a married woman, a mother, and a substitute teacher. I am standing in the fourth grade classroom I will be covering for the day. There is no accompanying sound or caption, but I know what is happening. The principal of the school where I work has just come over the intercom. She has invited everyone to join her in a moment of silence. In the top right hand corner of the picture, Gavin, a sensitive boy with a mop of blond hair, whose father is a firefighter, appears. He is looking at me inquisitively. As he desperately searches for meaning, I come to the realization that it has been as long as I was old on that terrible day, now so long ago. I am the only one standing in the room who was alive when it happened. End of Slides.

Each year, at the end of this day, I flip the vintage projector’s toggle switches to the off position. I wait for the fan to be still, and for the incandescent bulb to dim. Once I am sure that the vintage old style projector has powered down, I reverently return each slide to its proper resting place. I tenderly pick each slide up by its cardboard frame, grasping the frame gingerly between by thumb and pointer finger, knowing that the next time I see them, they will look a little different. They will be slightly more faded. They will be more surreal. I am the curator of this disjointed coming- of- age story. It is my duty to preserve these images, or they will all be dust.

Caitlin Immerman McGinley

2019