Photographs and Memories

If the title of this blog makes you try to remember the lyrics, then you are probably as big of a Jim Croce fan as I am.  I stand in awe of the talent that wrote such songs as "Photographs and Memories" and "Time In a Bottle" and then could write "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Don't Mess Around With Jim".

That said, what I really want to talk about in this blog is photographs.  Downsizing is obviously going to be a long, drawn-out process, at least the way I do it.  My dad put together about two dozen family photo albums after he retired and had the time.  Some of them contain pictures of his family and must be almost 100 years old.  Some of them are starring yours truly - that's as it should be when you have the luck to be first born!  Lots of pictures of children, grandchildren, and special events; the trailer in Garden City, the trips to Florida, Christmases spent together, all crowd the others.  For now, I am, if not the family archivist, at least the photo album repository and thus part of the reason for trying to downsize.  A note right here:  my great-niece, Michele Anderson (great in many more ways than one!) is becoming the family archivist, so family, don't just throw out those memories, see if Michele wants them first.  I spent most of the last two days just going through photographs and memories.  Some of them are a bit embarrassing: "Boy, did I ever look like a geek (that means "nerd" for you old folks).  There I am with a pocket protector and three pens stuck into it."  Some of them are more fun: "Wow!  Sara really looks hot in that one.  No wonder I wanted to jump her bones all the time. (with apologies to my children whom, I suspect, still believe that they got here by immaculate conception.)  Some photos made me wonder.  Some made me sad.  Some made me very glad.  Some were of family and friends that I haven't seen in a long time and many of those I won't see again until I join them in eternity.

Sara and I have very carefully collected our photos by throwing them into various boxes stored in various places.  There are some in the attic, some in the den closet, and some in the washroom.  I'm thinking that it might be fun to drag those out and go through even more memories while the chance is presenting itself.  Maybe I'll bring in the whole family and we can stroll down memory lane together.  At least, we weren't the type of family who recorded every activity on slides and made all friends and relatives watch them time after time!  I've already cleared out my dad's slide collection.

I do have a small concern.  I hear that newspapers are going out of style and that high school and college annuals are becoming a thing of the past.  I wonder... in fifty years, where will we be able to find that photo of three generations holding and smiling at the just-born fourth generation?  Where will we be able to reread a yellowed and curling copy of a wedding announcement or an Eagle Scout ceremony or the obituary of a long gone friend?  When old, sometimes very old, high school friends get together, will they pass around some electronic device to share graduation pictures and memories?  I just don't know.  I don't stand in the way of progress and modern miracles, I just believe that some things can't be easily replaced.  One of them is photographs and memories.