OLD PICTURES

"Here's the last one that I ever took of daddy . . . "

 "You must be going through your archives," my cousin wrote.  I had sent her some OLD family photographs.  (Except the one above is not old; it dates just to 1992.  More on that later.)

  The Statler Brothers sang about "Pictures" and the song has been 'playing' in my mind today.  Several of the lines were  especially poignant . . .  such as "Can you believe the dresses that you wore ?"; "Here we are at graduation"; "And here I am when I was just a kid"; and, apropos of the above picture: "Here's the last one that we ever took of daddy".  I took this one in September  1992, just a few weeks prior to dad's death.  He had wanted us to ride over the old dry-cleaning routes we had known in the 1940's and early '50's.  Mr. Markham's rural store had been one of his collection locations.  I have great memories of snacks he bought for me there, especially strings of black licorice.  In the intervening years, nature has overgrown the edifice and I could barely see it when we rode by it this past Spring.
  
    The song continues, "it's so much fun to be reminded of how we used to look and what we used to do. . . "  That sentiment is not universally held.  I do not believe that any of the lines quoted above were intended to be derisive.  Ridiculing pictures of the past can be a mean precedent for looking at today's prized pic's in, say, 30-50 years from now.

   The faces in the pictures that follow will be known and recognized by but few of those who read this.  I post these as encouragement for you to review your 'family archives', especially if those can be reminders of 'the goodly part of your heritage'.

"And can you believe the dresses that you wore . . ."

(With due apologies to high school classmates. Early 1950's)




                

"And here we are at graduation" . . .

May 1956.  Delana and I received an award.

"And here I am when I was just a kid . . ."

    Probably 1940 in the Southern U.S. mill village where we lived until I was approximately 5 years old.







  "It's so much fun to be reminded, of how we used to look and of what we used to do . . ."

Dad's foster-sister, Louise, and her son, around mid-1920's.










                                                             My mom (who would be 97 were she living) on right and her recently deceased sister-in-law around 1942.

   As mom grew older she had a distinct aversion to being photographed.











How the 'younger generation' looked:

My daughter on far right and her cousins, around late 1970's







   Take lots of pictures . . .  you and others probably will be  glad "one of these days".

       Satchel