Soccer Practice

Soccer was not a popular sport in the USA in the early 1980's, especially compared with baseball. (Steven did start baseball practice in the first grade and where they played so-called T-ball.) However, for the soccer team we had a very enthusiastic coach, an ETSU student from South America who volunteered to coach Steven's team for a couple of years. There was no formal organization. They just had some fun games whenever he could arrange one. There were quite a number of adults involved. We had this picture taken and I do not remember the exact date , but it was definitely in 1981. You can see our good friends, Otto and Prudy Zinser, the parents of Kurt, and Bob Lapella was there also as his son, Alex, was on the team. The Foreign Student Advisor was there in the picture, as the coach was a foreign student. Frank Newby was there too, as his son Peter was in one grade lower at the University School and played on the team. So it is a very interesting picture!

School Play

In the spring semester of 1981, Margaret's class had a school play. It was an early American traditional play and all the cast members were in costumes. The play was actually a musical with singing and square dancing. We no longer remember the title of the play, but all the children involved had a great time. Certainly Margaret did! The class teacher was Polly Taylor, who can be seen taking pictures in the fourth picture posted below. Jane LaPella, who was not a teacher in the school but who was playing the piano for them, is shown in the third picture. Margaret's best friend, Wendy Whitmore, is standing next to Margaret in the first picture!

 

Annual Christmas Photo Shots

Every year, during the month of November, the whole family would choose one day on a weekend to take pictures of our children for our Christmas cards. We did this routinely until after both of them left for college. This year, 1980, we chose the picture for our card from between the two pictures shown below:

In 1980, I had just made the final switch away from slides to Kodak color prints. To have a Christmas card made using a commercial service, you must send the negative of the picture you wanted to use so that they could print it on the cards you have chosen. Our finished product was just a card with a Santa on it and a very simple holiday wish!