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You wouldn't recognize me

As I write this the Monday before the Fourth of July, the weather looks like it will be a bit iffy for the big day. Seldom has it rained on Independence Day, although on rare occasions it has happened. The rainy holidays become the stuff of reminiscence and all communities need some of those.

How's that for a "que sera, sera" attitude?

So, moving right along . . . The Mister and I motored off to Colorado this past week to visit my sister and her family, and my mom. The plan for this trip was to sort through boxes of old family pictures and photograph albums, divvy up the contents, and get some names and such from my mother. Amazingly enough, our mission was mostly accomplished. Mother is 93, but still has an astounding memory and she filled in lots of gaps. (I on the other hand, cannot remember for sure what day we left Peabody to make the trip.)

My dad was something of an expert amateur photographer. He took tons of pictures of us, developed his own film, and made multiple prints of just about everything. There was a lot to look at. Of course each photo had a story behind it and Mother knew lots of the details.

We also discovered pictures of our parents and their siblings. Several from my mom's side were taken in front of a huge Coca-Cola billboard in the mid- to late-1920s. Mother and her brother and most of her sisters were teenagers. For some reason, being in front of that billboard seemed to represent a triumph of sorts.

(I just wanted to know what they did with the Coca-Cola billboard . . . an eBay prize for certain!)

Our grandfather owned a country store and Mother said that a salesman from Coca-Cola struck a deal with her dad to trade circus tickets for the right to put a billboard on some land next to the store. She said, "Poor Dad, he worked long hours and after he made that deal he had to haul all six of us to a circus performance in another town." But their little "spot in the road" community had an advertising billboard of its very own, a big deal at the time!

There were lots of stories like that. We took copious notes.

My sister and I both have digital cameras. Our children also have digital cameras. We all e-mail photos back and forth. When our e-mail in-boxes get full, we look over the big files and decide what to dump. Or we move the digital pictures into files elsewhere in our computers. And then I guess we hope our computers don't crash.

I can't imagine my kids sitting around a computer monitor in a couple of decades wondering who those people might be in my photo files. Doesn't make quite the same impression, does it? Technology is grand, but sometimes it leaves something to be desired.

Hang on to that old Nikon and use it from time to time. Your children will be glad you did.

— SUSAN MARSHALL

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