Most of my recent posts have been about people who lived centuries ago, so I thought it would be nice to focus on more recent history in today’s post.

Before he died nearly three years ago, my father—Keith Black—thoughtfully digitized several reels of 8mm home movies that he had found while going through his and his parents’ belongings a couple of years earlier.

I haven’t had the chance until very recently to see any of this video for myself, and now that I have seen it I want to share it with anyone who might be interested. I’ll share the others over the coming weeks. These home movies were shot between the late 1950s and the early 1970s.

Today’s video is entitled “Our Merry Christmas 1967 with Mikie.” I was surprised to see me called Mikie in the title, as family lore states that when I was less than six months old my great-grandfather Clyde Askew held me in his arms and declared “Don’t ever call him Mikie.”

Starring in the movie below are Michael Black, Polly (Prettyman) Black, Keith Black, Gary Black, and Gary’s girlfriend Sandra Sederberg. The first part of the film was shot on location at either our Haskell Avenue or Vesper Avenue house (let me know if you know which) in Van Nuys, and at Vernon and Dorothy (McMurry) Black’s Hamlin Street house, also in Van Nuys.