Picture THAT

   Recently I sent my brothers a photograph taken of me in one of my Christmas naps.  Given my fondness for naps and the presence of mischievous folks with cameras, a few such photos exist.  This one startled me . . . not because it was I but because it looks so very much like our dad.  One brother said that it was chilling when he saw it.  Dad's two brothers also noted the very strong resemblance.  Well, that very good man has been deceased for 21+ years and he is still missed, not morbidly, but missed.

         Perhaps because of that photo, or perhaps because we took so many pictures during vacation, or perhaps it was a picture of my now 40-something daughter's fifth birthday that was posted recently ; at any rate, in the past few days, I have been reviewing the many snapshots in the albums that our parents assembled over their years.  Some of them date to the 1920's, perhaps a few to earlier times.  

     As I have noted several times in this blog, living in the past is not healthy; visiting there and, perhaps, learning and attaining perspectives can be enriching.  Mom and dad had pictures of many of our relatives and friends.  Of some of those snapshots, I took pic's with my iPhone and emailed them to my cousins.  Seeing how we used to look can be instructive on several levels, one being to cherish the 'right now'.  As the old proverb has it, "We get too soon old and too late smart."   

     In the gallery that follows, the faces will be familiar to only a few readers.  My hope is that you will consider this an invitation to 'dust off' your family albums and take a retrospective walk.  It might even prompt you to a sentiment like that the Statler Brothers sang: "And can you believe the dresses that they wore !"   

      

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Left: Mom and Dad ca. early 1980's;   Right: Mom and Dad in Chapel Hill, NC ca mid 1930's

                                               Dad, his Dad and an unknown (to me ) child
                                                                 Around 1954

Above with my brother Den around 1943;

Right, our "Baby Brother", Bob  1948

Below: As Bill Cosby said, "I started out as a child."

 

                Satchel