Friday, June 3, 2011

“IT STRIKES” Again: Family pictures Tupperware-fresh for future generations

[The following article was originally published in November, 2002. What has changed since then? The Tupperware tubs contain more photos and most of them are fresher than I am. gah]

Family pictures Tupperware-fresh for future generations PT 1

One week after I returned from an October marathon in Chicago with a van-load of ambitious runners, I picked up my photos from Black’s on Wharncliffe and raced home to see the results of my photographic labours.

I spread out the pictures on the dining room table to get a second look at the streetscapes of the ‘Windy City’, runners treading softly on day-old blisters, long tidy rows of blue portable johns, and young, thoughtful artists sketching enormous bronzes at the entrance to Grant park.


["Chicago in October, 2002. Marathon start line was two blocks to the right"; photo by GH]

After sifting and sorting it was time to put them away. But where?

Where can a person put or display Kodak moments if they’ve collected photos for 40 years or more?

I could select a couple and tack them onto the last piece of bare wall behind the furnace or rotate a handful in one frame on the coffee table.

I could lean one on the fireplace mantle beside the blue titanite (or is it gneiss?) from Bancroft or among the dried leaves from our golden plum or against a cranberry glass from Pat’s collection.

I could stick one on the bathroom mirror so Pat and I would be able to look at something more pleasant than our droopy noses first thing in the morning.

I could start a new album and pile it with the 195 other albums that dominate the shelves of the bookcase in the living room, though the weight of the photos is starting to make the house shift to one side.

Few people actually glance at the albums anymore. How many times do we have the patience to look at ourselves eating turkey or opening presents from one year to the next? (It appears I ate turkey last year in much the same way as I ate it in the early 1950s. I have the black and whites to prove it.)

So, photos in hand...

... to be continued, asap!

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Please click here to read the last exciting episode of “IT STRIKES” Again.

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