Ruminations on old pictures, old memories

JMM is going through all our old photographs and digitizing them. It is a Herculean task as we have pictures going back to Creation, we probably have an old sepia print of the original Higgs Boson, but I digress. Some of the albums are composed of thick paper sheets with the pictures held in place with little sticky corner tabs. Others are more problematic in that they are in albums where the pictures are held in place on sticky sheets and covered in plastic. It is hard to get the pictures out without damaging them. Then there are the photos that have come loose and are not in an album at all. JMM asks me, who can barely remember yesterday, to identify the people, place, and date. Oddly enough, many times, I can.

So many of them are dead now. And for some, I may be the only person living who remembers them. It is to be expected as one gets older but it is still a lonely feeling. And memories do come flooding back.

Some of the pictures are of my three nieces, the daughters of my deceased older brother. One of the nieces died a year ago. They were such beautiful girls. But something went wrong and their lives went awry. I have spent much of yesterday and today wondering if I had stayed in closer contact with them, if things may have been different for them. I'll never know for sure but probably not. They had so much going against them: unstable parents, low educational attainment, no church, smoking & alcohol, serial relationships, and serial bad decisions.

 It was and is just a sad, sad situation.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf

It's good to read this every once in a while just to remember where we have come from.

The public schools I attended were completely segregated.  I remember the separate water fountains.  The only blacks I knew were the maids. I never ate at a restaurant where blacks were served.  And most interesting, JMM has the deed to the house that his parents bought just after WW II; the deed specifies that the property could not be sold to Negroes.  This is not ancient history, it is within my lifetime.  And we wonder at lingering resentment.

The only one who remembers

Both my parents died 30+ years ago and my Aunt who was the last of her generation died last May. My oldest brother died 5 years ago. I have a half-brother who is more or less the family ne'r-do-well still living but we have not been in touch for many years. I have the oddest feeling of wanting to see him only because he is the only one who remembers the old days, who remembers the people and the houses and the times. I don't suppose I will but it is so odd to know that no one remembers. Has anyone else experienced this?