It really hit me on Friday that aside from 10 photos that accidentally got packed, all of my old albums are in WA and, given the time they have been in storage, are unlikely to really be viable anymore. So I have no photos of my time before NSW.It is interesting because there are some childhood pictures I would like to have copies of but I don't have many photos from my teens and twenties so it is probably okay.
I have no kids and lets face it, once you have seen someone's album that is about the end of that. Remember the never-ending slide nights of the 70's? It is now your kids that you "bore" with the stories behind the photo year after year until, like our generations before, it becomes an oral history that gets passed down as each new generation comes along.
I love the Nostalgic Saturday but I don't actually have photos of the things I want to talk about (like the library) so I am very happy with the way that works for me. And sometimes it is the story that makes the photo all the more important.
Take Abbey's post for example. The photo is delightful but the background information about her grandfather is linked implicitly to the picture for Abbey but for us (the stranger) it is a girl on the back of a truck. It takes the telling of the story to add that dimension.
And that is how history is passed on. And more importantly OUR history.
4 comments:
I agree with you. Often when the woman talk of someone I will say 'Who is that?'
My aunt will waffle on the family tree till she comes up with 'She's your 3rd cousin once removed, on your fathers side, born down Bowra way, moved to the city in 65 or was it 66, no that was your other cousin from out wagga way, married that stocky from Qld'
God help us if something ever happens to my aunt.... take into account this is said with 5 other women butting in and adding there 2cents...lol
Why do you say your photos and albums will be no longer viable. I know how you feel though. My mother made me albums in my teens, all my school photos etc..I left them at Charleville and they were lost in the floods on year...
It is definitely the story, the photo is just a trigger, and leads ones memory from one thing to the next...Great post Goddess
Old album photos stored in not so grand conditions, will survive, even though sticky, faded and imperfect. Tattered glimpses bring back the good memories just the same. They may be in better shape than you think if retrievable.
We are our stories.
Ditto what Vickie said. If you can get to them, do so. Even if they have yellowed or crinkled with age, that just adds to their charm I think.
Okay, so you've no children to pass them on to. Do you have nieces or nephews? Or even cousins? Consider passing them on to them. I've gotten a real kick at looking at some of my distant relatives albums, and even borrowing some of their pictures to make copies for my own scrapbook.
My albums have been in storage (casually packed in a box to be precise) for over two years - and who knows when I will have the money to get them over here. I think with the dust and the heat and the mice and possible rain or whatever else might go into my storage unitwhich, there probably won't be much left. Not being over-dramatic, just realistic :-)
And I do tell some of are much more "my" kids (okay kids that other parents let me play with lol) stories here and there but they really do have their own family histories, which is much more relevant to their day to day lives, to learn - maybe they will come back to my stories later in their lives.
I am not putting myself down here - I am swamped with love by the younger generation but they haven't been to my brother's farm, or my grandfathers farm, they haven't met most everyone I speak about. It is unrealistic to expect them to be passionate about remembering all of it when it is so removed from their own lives. The advantage of parenthood is that you do get to drag the kids around to people and places important to you.
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