Just about all of the photos taken of our family when I was a kid are slides. There’s not too many of them because Dad had the only camera and he worked away from home for years on the Snowy Mountain Scheme, only staying with us for Christmas holidays. Here are a few of the Bauer Family Slides.  They’re pretty blurry because they’re just photos of the image on our old projector screen.

Here’s me with our dog Billy. Yes I know he’s not a dog – now. But we were too poor then to own a real dog so my parents just bought this guinea-pig and told us it was a miniature short-tailed Schnauzer. It all ended tragically when I tried to mate Billy with the neighbours’ pit bull.

And of course because I come from Australia we also had the obligatory pet kangaroos. We just rounded them up from the streets.

This is me at our Grade Three Graduation ball. Those things on the side of my head aren’t advertising hoardings, they’re actually my ears. I could pick up short wave stations with those babies!

In this photo I’m thinking, “I’ve heard about these girl creatures from my mother. They’re dangerous! Although, this one looks pretty cute …”

Here’s what you do if you have big ears – apply Einstein’s theory of relativity and make friends with kids who have even bigger ears!

Actually I think there might have been some kind of big ear epidemic going around in those days. Check out that boy in the background! Is he primed for take-off? And what is he wearing? You can tell that he is just so jealous of me and my friends Kenny and Paul. I mean, could we be more dashing and suave?

This is us at our Auntie and Uncle’s sugar cane farm at Woongoolba. That’s me and my sister Cath on the horse. The tall girl is my sister Helen and the red-haired boy is my brother Rob. Mum figured she could save a heap of money if she just stopped feeding Rob altogether. It worked a treat!

Once every three months at the Bauer’s was bath day. It was a lot of fun!
Nothing says “Queensland” to me more than this photo.

Now here’s a sight that struck fear into the hearts of men!

This was my first Rugby strip. It always looked this clean and neat because I had the unique ability of going through entire games without ever actually touching the ball or making a tackle.

This is me at Lone Pine Sanctuary in Brisbane about to run and hide behind my mother’s dress because I’m heart-stoppingly terrified of those killer Peacocks.
And just look at how proud my father is of me!

Pretty sure this is me on my First Holy Communion day. That dog was called Penny. She was a part Collie part Pomeranian. She used to wait for me to come home from school everyday on the footpath outside our house. Then she’d jump all over me. Best. Dog. Ever. I gave some of her stories to Mr Mosely in Just a Dog and she’s mentioned along with our other dogs in the Dedication.

These are a couple of my favourite slides.

My sister Cath and I at Sutton’s beach Redcliffe having fun and lost in our own little world.

 Then we get wiped out by a wave that we didn’t see coming.

Isn’t life sometimes like that.

This is the only time I think Dad ever tried to get arty with a photo. I’ve always liked the warmth of it. Mum’s holding our vinyl album of Oklahoma. Don’t know where Rob was though.

I loved that old stereogram behind us.  In the years that followed I remember standing beside it and hearing Bob Dylan sing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time and later the same thing with The Beatles singing Hey Jude. Both times I was completely blown away.

Finally a rare shot of the entire family.

I wasn’t allowed to sit on the couch till I was house trained.

It took some time.

Cheers
Michael