Sunprint
Old pictures of people usually are interesting. See how you looked! Is that how you dressed?
My great-aunt Allie died in 1978, when I was just out of high school. All my life, she was sickly, more or less confined to a rocking chair, with a wet, hacking cough. She was a kind, patient, wise woman and taught me to look at the world in careful, whimsical ways. It was she who, when I was little, pulled out a 1961 half dollar and showed me that "1961" is the same upside down as right-side up. Then we figured out that this was the first such year since 1881. And the next time that will be true isn't until 6009.
This is how she looked as I always remember her:
That's a close-up of a snapshot from my first birthday. I wonder what she's thinking, as a now find myself closer to her age, in the photo, than to mine.
But in combing through the old family photos I find a different woman, a young girl I hardly recognize (here, on the left, with a high school chum), full of vigor and fun. There's even a newspaper clipping of her and another girl having to be rescued after going out boating with a couple of boys.
When people point their cameras at places, not things, they tend to take pictures of what's not needed; that is, they photograph what's looked the same forever. I find pictures my parents took of, say San Juan Capistrano. A picture of Capistrano from 1920 is not much different than one from 1956. I wish they had taken more pictures of what will not remain. I can always find pictures of landmarks, but a picture of the corner store in 1956 would be a gem, more memorable than the Alamo.
In the boxes of family slides I found this slightly bizarre-looking picture of my mom holding me circa November 1960 outside the house where we then lived. What interests me is in the upper right corner. See that plowed field? That wooded slope? Now that's all a vast, glittering shopping emporium called Exton Mall.
My great-aunt Allie died in 1978, when I was just out of high school. All my life, she was sickly, more or less confined to a rocking chair, with a wet, hacking cough. She was a kind, patient, wise woman and taught me to look at the world in careful, whimsical ways. It was she who, when I was little, pulled out a 1961 half dollar and showed me that "1961" is the same upside down as right-side up. Then we figured out that this was the first such year since 1881. And the next time that will be true isn't until 6009.
This is how she looked as I always remember her:
That's a close-up of a snapshot from my first birthday. I wonder what she's thinking, as a now find myself closer to her age, in the photo, than to mine.
But in combing through the old family photos I find a different woman, a young girl I hardly recognize (here, on the left, with a high school chum), full of vigor and fun. There's even a newspaper clipping of her and another girl having to be rescued after going out boating with a couple of boys.
When people point their cameras at places, not things, they tend to take pictures of what's not needed; that is, they photograph what's looked the same forever. I find pictures my parents took of, say San Juan Capistrano. A picture of Capistrano from 1920 is not much different than one from 1956. I wish they had taken more pictures of what will not remain. I can always find pictures of landmarks, but a picture of the corner store in 1956 would be a gem, more memorable than the Alamo.
In the boxes of family slides I found this slightly bizarre-looking picture of my mom holding me circa November 1960 outside the house where we then lived. What interests me is in the upper right corner. See that plowed field? That wooded slope? Now that's all a vast, glittering shopping emporium called Exton Mall.
