Old photos are donated to the thrift store with some frequency--often loose, sometimes in albums, and sometimes they've been professionally framed in colors suited to old sepia.
I bought such a framed one, took out the old photo (saved it), and framed the photo of my mother's father as a 12-year-old boy. I've had it since my mother died twenty years ago.
Below, far right: my grandfather, Lytton Somer Davis, Kentucky, c. 1912.
Handling the photo, I noticed THE DOG lying at the family's feet. |
Of course it has always been there--had I never seen it? Or just forgotten?
I've posted this before, but here I brightened the photo so the dog is more visible:
My grandfather always stayed aloof when my mother took my sister and me to visit her parents in Missouri. He did tell stories about growing up though, and the memory came to me that he'd said all their dogs were named Ticky Pete.
Here's my wall with the sepia photo (bottom row).
Auntie Vi drew the charcoal picture of a bridge in winter, far right. I've walked across that bridge often--it's in a little park near her house.
I will keep an eye out for more good frames--I want to add some favorite photos from my father's family too.
Not sure I want photos of my immediate family on display, though--they mostly call up pangs of sadness...
Auntie Vi never had family photos up, said they made her too sad. Now I understand. But the generation further back, I don't have close memories.
With everyone gone, the photos remind me of where I come from, the framework of who I am.
