My aunt passed along some old pictures this morning and I can’t stop looking at them. Behold, my father as a young hipster.
For some reason, I’ve always been obsessed with old pictures. In fact as a petulant middle child, I once compared all three baby books in my family–my brother’s, mine, and my baby sister’s–side by side and found that mine had the fewest pictures. Yes, I counted them. AND mine did not contain a clipping from my first haircut–as theirs did. Seeing this as SCIENTIFIC PROOF of a problematic and systematic policy of ignoring me in favor of my siblings, I brought it to my mother’s immediate attention.
She shrugged and admitted that my childhood was a very busy time, with my brother becoming a big boy and my baby sister riding on her hip. She apologized and promised they loved us all the same. Ha! Likely story, lady.
“Well, when I’m a mother, I’m going to make sure that I take the EXACT same number of pictures of each child,” I said. She smiled and said, “You do that.”
To this day, it’s one of their favorite stories about me. Oh middle child angst! The truth is, I’m a natural ham and no amount of attention is really enough. There could always be more, more, more! But thanks to my over-achieving siblings, I’ve learned to share the spotlight. (They’d make Chelsea Clinton look like a lazy dolt.)
Want to peek at a few more? I’m so glad you asked! Here are my grandparents on my dad’s side, Preston and Myrtle:
My sister is basically a copy of my grandmother. It’s almost freaky how much they look alike and no one looks like my grandfather. If my grandmother hadn’t been such a teetotaling, bible-thumping kind of lady, I might cry foul. But we’re talking about a lady who wouldn’t play BINGO at her retirement community because it’s GAMBLING! In case you didn’t know, gambling is a sin to god-fearin’ Southern folks.
Here’s my Aunt Judy getting married. I think this was before people thought to smile in pictures. Can someone explain that to me? The need to be grim? In real life, Aunt Judy is the life of the party. Also, can we all agree that the girl’s got style? In spades?
And here’s my mom, rocking the coolest hair ever. She was stunning and we all fight to say we look like her, but alas, my dad’s genes have proved to be much, much more dominant.
I love the way old pictures help you stop and remember that every day, every moment, time is passing. And though it doesn’t feel like it now, this hairstyle, that dog, it’s all fleeting and important and one day, you’ll look back on it and think, My god. We were so young then!
Or maybe I’m just going to end up being that weird aunt that’s obsessed with genealogy, the one who turns up at Thanksgiving every year saying, “We’re related to George Washington! And the Queen of England! And Eli Whitney!”
