Can you say, "Whee-doggies!" These are some of the same people that were in my oldest photo from Monday's post. I'm guessing this one's about 20 years after the first one. That's my grandmother in the middle in the dark smock, turned half away from the camera, between the child and the woman in the bonnet. My grandfather is in the background, upper right, reclining on something. The young woman in the foreground in the polka dot outfit looks an awfully lot like my mother. It's not so much the facial features and the build which could match her sister's, but the expression -- those dead level, "serious" eyebrows. Mom was the kindest person in the world, but she had a plan to kill everyone she met. Just kidding, sort of. She's probably barefoot. I'm not sure who the man is on the other side of her -- he looks familiar. I wish the guy behind her were facing the camera. He looks familiar, too, but probably isn't her brother. I suppose it could be Dad -- the nose looks big enough, but I'm withholding judgment until Sis sees it.
Hey, look, color! I actually took this picture and the next one -- probably with the little 110 I used to carry. The above is not an outhouse. It's the first house my parents lived in after they were married. My oldest sister was born there. It was in a little better shape then. Notice, however, the foundation consists of dry-stacked, flat rocks. Dad didn't build this one. His father sold him this place. The big selling point -- location, of course. There is a good-sized and unfailing spring off to the left in the base of the hill. That was their water source and refrigerator.
4 comments:
Amazing how quickly things changed for your parents. What a huge jump from where they started!
These are great, Mush.
I'm thinking about you writing code and trying to explain that to the people who spent their first winter in the first house. You know, if you had a time machine and went back there. They would say, "you do what?"
Show them you're iPhone or something.
Which reminds me, remind me to never complain when my iPhone gets a little stuck and delays the weather satellite map animation..while sending email..with video attached from the deck of a ship. (Well, I made that up. But it's only happening a million times a second.right.now.)
I mean, within a man's lifespan all this happened?
O my son the places you will go..
Some of the improvement in their lives was due simply to the rising economic tide after WWII began. But they managed well, too. They were always diversified -- they'd do what they thought would make them money, but that was never the only thing they did. Mom had a knack for getting things done, and she was tough -- it didn't matter, she'd stick with it. Dad was smart and could figure out most things. A friend of ours, a retired Navy Admiral -- no fool himself, referred to Dad as "a man of many talents". They were flexible -- a little too skeptical to be first adopters; they were not opposed to finding a new, easier, more productive way to do things -- as long as it didn't cost too much. Sweat's cheap.
Dad and I had that conversation a couple of times -- how much things had changed, and how different my way of making a living was. What a long, strange trip it's been.
Indeed.
I really enjoy talking to my father-in-law about when he was a boy. He's a bit older than my Dad -- 83, I think.
They were poor and it was rough of course but they seemed to not need much. I don't think it was altogether such a bad time to be a boy. He sounds as if he was quite busy then, always out doing something fun; baseball, working at the stables, skinny dipping, picking coal along the railroad tracks, being outside all day, swimming across the Taunton River. Staying warm. I remember my Dad telling me some friends of his who lived on a farm built a plane once out of old car and truck parts. Didn't fly but I can picture it bouncing over the ruts in the field and them laughing their heads off. Can't you?
:-)
BTW, I like the unretouched, original condition of your photographs here. I started adjusting the color and such of the ones on Beach Head and it just didn't seem right. It changed 'em.
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