by jphilo | May 14, 2012 | Current Events, Reflections on the Past
NPR ran a story about an intriguing concept this morning. The host interviewed Taylor Jones, a 22-year-old who created the website www.dearphotograph.com. Here’s what Jones, in an article at www.npr.org says about how the website came about:
He came up with the idea last year while sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. While flipping though a family photo album, he stumbled across a picture of his younger brother, Landon. “It was his third birthday,” Jones says. “He had a Winnie the Pooh cake, and I was sitting in the same spot my mom was when she took the original photo.” Landon was also sitting in his same birthday seat. So, Jones held up the old picture — taking care to line up kitchen cupboards just so — and snapped a photo. He posted it on his blog, and the rest, he says, is history.
People can go to the website and submit their own photographs, all of which must begin with the words Dear Photograph.
Like I said, an intriguing concept. So intriguing, I started thinking about what picture I would like to rephotograph in the same setting as it was originally taken.
- One from our South Dakota days? Too far away.
- A wedding shot? Too unoriginal.
- A Kodak Instamatic shot of the Badlands from the famous camping trip with my uncle and aunt? Not sure where that one is.
- Something from my teaching days? No, they tore the school down.
Undecided, I opened iPhoto, and there was the scan of a newspaper clipping we found when cleaning out Mom’s house 3 years ago. The clipping records one of my earliest clear memories – the day my aunt took her two daughters, my brother, and me (I’m the one closest to the camera) to watch a parade in our home town. I don’t remember the parade as much as the newspaper photographer who shot the picture. I do remember how safe I felt with my aunt, how much help she said I was, what a big girl I’d become. Heady stuff for a middle child whose major talent at the time was tripping over her own feet.
The caption says 8,000 spectators watched the American Legion Parade that day in 1961. It also lists our names, ages, and the address of the corner where Aunt Donna found a quiet, shady spot (Central Avenue and Fourth Street SE) so we could watch the National Guard trucks rumble past.
Mom and I are going to visit Aunt Donna in a couple weeks. Maybe I’ll take the original clipping along, find that street corner, line up the clipping with the present day location, snap a picture, and submit it to www.dearphotograph.com. I know what to write beneath my submission.
Dear Photograph,
Fifty years has taught me it’s more fun to join the parade of life than to sit and watch it go by.
Jolene
by jphilo | Apr 9, 2012 | Family, Reflections on the Past
The lilacs are blooming,
Blossoms purple against deep green leaves.
Their scent rises in greeting this morning
As I walk down the lane.
I welcome these old friends,
Who visit briefly each spring,
Then wave good-bye in the wind,
With never a backward glance at the branches that bore them.
My daughter loved their circle of branches,
A fairy ring just big enough
For one small girl and her dolls
To hold a tea party on summer afternoons.
I look for my sweet, shy daughter
And the circle of branches
In the lilacs,
But both are gone.
The fairy ring is overgrown,
Filled with tender, new lilac shoots.
My daughter is grown,
Filled with tender love for her new husband.
Still, the lilacs blossoms
Return each spring.
My daughter and her husband
Return when they can.
When they turn into our lane,
The lonely branches wave
To greet the shy, sweet girl
Who once nestled in the safety
Of a fairy ring.
by jphilo | Feb 17, 2012 | Reflections on the Past
February 20, 2012 – this coming Monday – is President’s Day. It is also the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s space orbit of earth. For those of us who were alive on that momentous occasion the question is this: Where were you when John Glenn orbited the globe? Do you need a minute to think about it? Well, while you do, I’ll report on my February 20, 1962 whereabouts.
I was in kindergarten. I looked kinda like the girl on the left in this picture.
Except wearing winter school clothes, not a summer play outfit.
And I wasn’t standing outside with my great uncle Phil and my sister. I was sitting cross-legged (or as our teachers said back then “Indian style”) on the gym floor at Franklin School.
But I wasn’t the only one sitting cross-legged on the floor while my feet fell asleep. About 60 other kindergartners and two frazzled teachers (though they sat in folding chairs when they weren’t scolding kids who couldn’t keep their hands and feet to themselves) were sitting with me. We kindergartners stared at an itty, bitty TV on the stage at one end of the gym and tried really hard to keep our hands and feet to ourselves and use inside voices. But, we were pretty pumped about watching TV at school, especially after one of the kids said the teachers were gonna let us watch cartoons. Which I found hard to believe because my mom was a teacher, and she never allowed us to watch cartoons at home.
Still, we were hopeful.
Until one of the frazzled teachers made an announcement. “Boys and girls,” she said, “today the astronaut John Glenn is orbiting the earth.” Then, she used a globe and an orange to demonstrate the word orbit. Once that was done, she continued, “Now, we will watch the historic event.” At which point she turned on the television and we all strained to see the orange in space.
Except there wasn’t one.
All we could see was a fuzzy gray and a grayish-white blob moving across the screen. At least we could sort of see the blob. If the teacher pointed at it with her finger. It was pretty boring. So we all started not keeping our hands and fingers to ourselves and not using inside voices until the teachers gave up and turned off the TV. No doubt, they thought their attempt at imprinting a moment of history in the minds of their students was a bust.
But it wasn’t.
My memories of kindergarten are few. Some vague vignettes of trying to lie still during nap time and being a failure at coloring between the lines. Except for February 20, 1962 when John Glenn orbited the earth. That day, I remember clearly.
I remember watching our teacher point his spaceship’s progress through space.
I can still feel my feet falling asleep.
I can picture the wonder on my teacher’s face.
I can hear the excitement in the television announcer’s voice.
Thanks to 2 frazzled teachers, I remember much about the day John Glenn orbited earth fifty years ago on February 20, 1962. How about you? What do you remember? Leave a comment to share your memory of that day.
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2012 | Current Events, Reflections on the Past
Yesterday morning, my first thought was not, “Today, I’m gonna feel old.” But thanks to the Girl Scouts – yes, those cute little cookie peddlers who sell sugar highs in a box – for the first time ever, I am feeling a wee bit ancient.
Not just old. Ancient.
The realization was gradual, increasing the longer I listened to Talk of Iowa on the radio. The topic was the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts, and the host interviewed some Girl Scout leaders and a couple honest-to-goodness present day Girl Scouts. The girls were about the same age I was during my short career as cookie salesgirl and sash wearer.
And they made me feel not just old. But ancient.
It wasn’t their fault. But, while they talked, I thought about how 1912 was a century ago for the little girls. Just like 1865 was a hundred years ago when I attended Girl Scout meetings after school in 1965. So if and when they watch a show like Downton Abbey, the events portrayed there are as long ago and far away to them as the events chronicled in Gone With the Wind were to me.
And that’s when I started feeling not just old. But ancient.
Not because the Civil War seemed like a long time ago when I was a Girl Scout. And not because 1912 is a long time ago to the girls in the radio interview. And not because 1912 didn’t seem like such a long time ago in my GS days. But because the Civil War probably didn’t seem like such a long time ago to fifty-five-year-old adults in my GS days, but I thought those people were old.
But they didn’t seem just old. They seemed ancient.
Which is how today’s Girl Scouts view everybody old enough to tuck an AARP membership card next to the packet of Metamucil in their wallets, old enough to wear sensible shoes, sport age spots, and wear pants with elastic waistbands.
They view us as not just old. But ancient.
Oh my, the depression is coming on thick and fast. I think there’s only one way to fight this thing. I’m gonna find a Girl Scout, buy a box of Thin Mints, and snarf down the whole box. After all, my mom says old people like me have earned the right to eat whatever they want. And she ought to know.
‘Cause she’s not just old. She’s ancient.
by jphilo | Jan 17, 2012 | Reflections on the Past
In the mid-1960s, my mom enlisted Debbie Drake, the female counterpart to Jack Lalanne, to make me fit and trim. I was on the chubby side back then, sedentary and clumsy. More inclined to grab a glass of milk and a handful of cookies before curling up with a Little House book than going for a bike ride in the fresh air.
Mom must have been really concerned about her couch potato middle child. Why else did this woman, who never bought anything without much deliberation and angst, purchase a non-necessary item at full price? Especially something as frivolous as a record album.
For those of you too young to know, record albums look like this.
And the records spun on machines like these to make the music play.
But she bought Feel Good! Look Great! Exercise Along with Debbie Drake, brought it home, and sat down to plan my daily exercise regiment. At first I was pretty gun-ho. Debbie Drake’s leotard with it’s crisp, white collar was a little dated. But it was pink. And secretly, I loved pink. And the title’s liberal use of exclamation points matched the exclamatory level of pre-teen girls everywhere!
Even though our English teachers said to use them sparingly or not at all!
Debbie Drake’s title was proof that the times, they were a-changing!
Unfortunately, the title was a lie!
The exercise routine Mom created, ala Debbie Drake, did not feel good!
Nor did it make me look great!
It just made me sore!
And the music!
Well, let’s just say the tunes Noel Regney and his sappy orchestra played to accompany the stretches and knee bends, and contortions were embarrassingly out of date!
At least for preteen girls in love with pink leotards and exclamation points!
I think I made it through all the exercises once. Then I buried the album at the bottom of a dresser drawer and forgot about Debbie Drake. Until a month or two ago when my knee started hurting and I went for physical therapy.
The therapist was named Katie, not Debbie.
She wore street clothes, not a pink leotard with a crisp, white collar.
No orchestra played sappy background music.
Exclamation points were not lurking in corners or lying on treadmills.
Still, I suspect Katie is a Debbie-Drake-and-my-mother throwback. Why? Because she planned an exercise regime to strengthen my glutes to correct my stride so my knee will feel better. But so far, all it’s done is make me ache in places I didn’t know had muscles. It has not made me feel great or look good.
So much for making me feel great Debbie, Mom, and Katie!
You should be glad I gave up on looking good ages ago!
Though if I had a pink leotard with a crisp, white collar, you could talk me into trying again!
by jphilo | Dec 19, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
The editor of the Boone News-Republican, our local newspaper, wrote an article about our church youth group’s annual caroling party. According to the reporter, the practice of caroling is dwindling away.
If that is true, I mourn the loss because I know how much it meant to Dad. Once he was confined to a wheelchair, he didn’t get out much in winter. While Mom was teaching and we kids were at school, he sat alone in our house, a prisoner to the snow and cold that made navigating his wheelchair outdoors almost impossible. When we came home each afternoon, Dad’s smile couldn’t quite cover the loneliness that made his shoulders slump and his forehead wrinkle.
But in the weeks leading up to Christmas, when we heard car doors slam in the driveway, the thump of boots on the sidewalk, and the doorbell ring, he was a different man. My cold-hating father threw open the front door, parked his wheelchair smack dab in the vortex of the frigid air, and pleasure warmed his body as he listened to the carolers.
That joy is what our youth pastor, Joel Waltz, tried to communicate to his charges before they started caroling last Wednesday night. “It may not seem like a big deal to you, it may seem like fun, but to someone at that doorstep or to someone at the hospital…or homes…it means a big deal to them,” he said. (To read the whole article and hear the kids sing some carols, go to www.newsrepublican.com.)
I think of Dad, shivering in the cold, grinning from ear to ear, waving to friends and strangers alike, thanking them for coming, wishing them a Merry Christmas as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, 4-Hers, high school activity clubs, youth groups, and Sunday school classes went back to their cars. If our youth group kids could have seen the sadness leave his shoulders, could have watched the wrinkles leave his forehead as the last strains of We Wish You a Merry Christmas died away, they would know Joel’s words are true. Caroling on someone’s doorstep or in a hospital is a big deal.
May it never be a lost art.
