Top photo - Everyone is looking up and laughing as someone put the candle from the table under the balloons and one popped. Now that’s entertainment.
Middle photo - Obviously this was not my birthday party, so I wanted no part of it. I am not sure if the look on my face was fear or envy or both. My dad, sister and older brother are in the back row.
I had good reason to keep a wary eye on my brother who is only twenty months older than me. Only a few years later he cut my curly hair off because he didn't like the sound of me crying when Mom brushed it. He filled my hood with sand in the sandbox causing me to tip over backwards, unable to get up. He accidentally hit me between the eyes with a hockey stick, cutting me for stitches. One time I may have "inadvertently" thrown a hairbrush in his general direction, cutting his eyebrow open a tiny wee bit. He didn't even need stitches. Too bad we don't have any photographic evidence of those incidents.
Despite these minor dustups, my brother and I were like two peas in a pod when we were kids. I was his shadow on the farm and he looked out for me. He stayed by my side when I got home from the hospital after getting my tonsils out when I was five. While I was recovering I came down with the chickenpox so he had a long wait. We are good friends to this day and our scars barely show.
Bottom left photo - Me with my eyes closed, blissfully grinning - being the birthday girl was glorious. Our little sister is in the red jumpsuit.
Bottom right photo - I don’t recall what the gift I am looking at was, but it appears to be something quite interesting.
In my post last year, Scorpios Like Money In Their Cakes, I shared memories of my childhood birthdays on the farm. Sadly, only a few pictures exist from those October celebrations. Luckily at the time, although they probably don’t remember, the individuals in these photos signed a release for their picture to be used fifty years later.
Looking at these old photos made me think about all the pictures I have on my phone. Where exactly will those pictures be in fifty years? Will my grandkids be able to find pictures from when they were young, or will those precious memories be lost somewhere in cyberspace?
Several days after I was thinking about preserving my pictures for future generations, I started looking through a box of items my parents had saved. Low and behold there were two small boxes of picture slides. I found myself trying to see what was on the slides. Holding them up to the light I could see they were photos of family events from the fifties and sixties.
60-year-old photo slides
Finding these slides definitely brought home how each generation records memories differently and the challenges changing technology creates for the next generation.
I have re-started the practice of printing my favourite photos so at least those will live on. After spending time looking through old photos in search of family history, I have a few tips:
- Take lots of pictures of family and friends in groups and individually.
- Photograph the home where you and/or your kids grew up. Take pictures of the inside, the outside and the yard.
- Photograph items that hold sentimental memories such as: the kitchen table that your family gatherers around, jewelry, uniforms, vehicles, favourite toys, food and pets.
- If you are taking photos of family members participating in sporting events, take individual photos as well as group pictures.
- Photograph the technology you have when your kids are growing up.
- It may also be a good idea to capture those childhood war wounds on camera as those stories stick around a long time.
I am glad I have these few photos. I would love to have one with my parents and siblings on my birthday and one of me with the cake Mom made. Back then getting film developed was considered costly, so they tried to make each picture count. Several people were often in each picture. Our parents didn't waste film taking pictures of items that seemed insignificant at the time. In my opinion, those pictures later have family and historical value.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures of me minus my hair or tipped over in the sandbox would have added to this story. Photos with stitches between my eyes and my brother's eyebrow cut open would have been the icing on the cake.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures of me minus my hair or tipped over in the sandbox would have added to this story. Photos with stitches between my eyes and my brother's eyebrow cut open would have been the icing on the cake.
A note I received from my daughter when she was in first grade. If you like this post, I’d love you to share it.
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