Photoessay #480 - Oak Ridge Picnic 1953

Some 'young marrieds' on a picnic in Oak Ridge Tennessee. All of the men in the picture are students are the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology where the best and the brightest went in 1953. With their wives and babies. All around the same age. Woe to you if you were experiencing infertility during those baby boomer times.

But pretty cute babies and young people. I'm the baby here on the left, shown with my father above and my mother below. Most of the first names are on the back and the date April 1953. Don't know the status of any of these people. My father has passed away, my mother is doing pretty well at 84.

My mother tells a chilling story about an Oak Ridge picnic, maybe this very one. Maybe earlier because these kids look pretty ambulatory. They were at a picnic and the babies were all laying on blankets next to the parents chatting away. My mother went over and picked me up. For no reason, she says, I wasn't fussing. At that moment, a branch fell on the blanket in the exact place where I had been laying just a few minutes before. Crazy!