Into the Past I Go

While I was out at the farm on Monday, I asked where the photo albums were. ZBoy had expressed an interest in seeing some old pictures and since we had a free day and were already out there, I asked.

To my horror, I discovered that they were being kept in the tackroom out in the barn in cardboard boxes.

My mission then became to save as much of them as I could by scanning them onto a CD where they wouldn't deteriorate.

Dad and I put them in my car and when I got them home, I asked Darling Man to help me carry them upstairs to the computer room.

Arriving upstairs, he deposited his box on the floor, then plunked down and started messing around on the computer and I sat on the futon and began going through the pictures.

Amazing. Pictures of my Great-Grandmother Wynne, my Granny Wales, my grandfather looking fit and in his prime on a balcony of Sir Gielgud's New York apartment. Pictures of family trips and everyday life. My brothers were astoundingly beautiful as children and grew up to be very handsome men. Looking at pictures of myself, I saw a rather gawky, plain little girl until I landed somewhere around 13 or 14, at which point I totally blossomed. Damn, I was hot.

I was laughing over this while DM was trying to focus on his computer stuff, but he finally gave up and turned around, asking what was so funny. I handed him a couple of pictures.

Both of these are actually during the time that DM and I were dating. I was in my early 30s - 31 or 32. Darling Man was rather young-looking too.

The first man I married was of German descent. His name showed it. When I told my grandmother that we were going to marry, she was very concerned that he was Jewish. Patiently, I explained to her that he wasn't Jewish, he was German. Obviously, that didn't last. It was a rather disastrous marriage and a civil but bitter (on his side) divorce. Seven years after leaving him, I decided to marry DM, of German and Czech descent. His name shows it. When I went to tell my grandma that I was going to do this, she groaned and said, "Oh, Sayre... not another German!"

Darling Man laughs about it, but when he saw this picture, that was immediately what he thought of - that if he'd been there for that conversation, it would have looked like this.

He wasn't there; this wasn't that conversation. In fact, I have no idea what Grandma is doing in this picture, but it sure does crack me up!

The walk down memory lane is going to be a long one. There are lots of pictures and I KNOW this isn't all of them. I'll be a scanning fool for a long time. Some of the albums are damaged, and a few pictures are years past saving, but the ones that tell our history, the ones that are still in good shape - those will move into the future as digital files.