“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It Goes On.”
Robert Frost

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Down Memory Lane




One of my brother's recently turned 60 years old.  As we reminisced about the good old days we also came to the harsh realization that we are getting old! How this happened we could not determine, but sure enough, when you look at the calendar and figure up the years, we are indeed old.

During our conversation my brother requested some of the old photos I had stored away.  He wanted to get some copies so he could quiz my Uncle about some of the relatives in the really ancient pictures. 






Year after year, the relatives start to slip away.....the ones who still remember all the names in the old photos.  My gift to my brother was a promise that by next summer I would have all the pictures copied on a disk for him.  As I started paging through my Mom's old photo albums, I noticed a theme with my pictures, I seemed to always have a cat as a prop!  Or maybe, I just always had a cat in my arms. I know they were my constant companions, so it is no surprise to see my image grasping a cat.







My brothers were several years older and I was almost like an only child at times.  There were no kids that lived close by, so many days I would play alone.  My bond with felines was obviously established at a young age and will continue all my life. My introverted nature helped me cope with being alone so much.  I actually preferred spending time with  adults or much older children than myself. That is probably where I honed my listening and observational skills!

Some day I will get all of these photos copied and I hope to share more of them with you.  I have sworn to my brothers to never put pictures of them beyond age ten anywhere on the internet, but they never read this, so I might sneak one in sometime down the road.





What kind of things start you down the path of memory lane!





16 comments:

  1. Hi,
    I just stopped by to say good morning.
    We recently had my husband's aunt here visiting... and she brought a box of old family photos. There were even letters from Joe's uncle, who was killed in the war, to him...a little 7 yr old boy. They looked through the pics and marked who everyone was. It was such a special time...brought tears to my husband's eyes...as he had not seen these pics before.
    I'm going to check out a few more things here..
    Have a nice day,
    Balisha

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    1. That is a wonderful story, thanks for sharing it. It is nice that you had someone to help identify the family members, and the old letters are priceless!

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  2. Nice photos! And yes, photos are the quickest route to go down memory lane, aren't they? I bet your short pants in the middle picture were called "pedal pushers," amiright? I had a pair too, LOL!

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    1. You are right! Before there were 'Capri' pants, there were 'pedal pushers'!

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  3. Nice photographs! You look adorable in them, and I love that you're holding a cat in each one. I really enjoy going through old photos; a lot of them bring back so many wonderful memories, others remind me of how much I miss some people that are no longer with us. It's bittersweet, but very special.

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  4. This is fun! Thank you for sharing. We too have old pics and no idea who these people are. The problem is that after our generation...no one cares about who those people were or nice china...paper plates are in!!! We indeed are getting old...oh well...

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    1. We're are aging like fine wine and besides look at the alternative! It's amazing how well some people on Etsy do with selling old photos though! There are still a few out there that like the old stuff! Thank goodness!

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  5. I love your photos Diane!! Especially that pensive expression in the first one. Like you I don't know where the years can have gone - and I feel no different now than I did in the black & white days! Make sure you do write down names while you think of them - it can be so frustrating to realise you have forgotten names and people that were on your mind all the time before. I'm always so sorry I did not ask my mom more about family history before she passed away - its something you can never get back!

    Like you I spent a lot of time on my own or with adults. I think that is why we are so similar in how we view the world.

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  6. Happy Birthday to your brother!

    I love the photos of you - and the cats!

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  7. Dear Diane - we are getting older...loved seeing your pictures with your kitties. You and I have so much in common because I always had a cat under my arm too. Looking back one realizes that when those photos were taken life for us was certainly much simpler - we just didn't know it then. Thanks so much for sharing a part of your memories...I so enjoyed visiting with you. Take care and have a good day my friend.

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  8. Those pictures are so sweet! I have had cats most of my life - I find them much more dependable and honest than people ;)

    Probably children's books make me think back to being a kid.

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  9. Gosh, I think we had quite similar childhoods, apart from with me, it was always dogs. My brother was 10 years older than me. Lovely photos. I used to walk other peoples dogs, I just love them! It gets so hard trying to track down who relatives were in old photos, I only have my Great Aunts daughter left to ask, but she has done quite a bit of research so that's good. :)

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  10. I love the pictures of you! You are such a cutey! I think it's so precious that you are always with a kitty ;o) You are not old my friend ;o) Didn't you know 60 is the new 40 ;o) Big Hugs ;o)

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  11. Such adorable pictures, thank you for sharing! You could fit right into one of those children's fairy story books :)

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  12. Thank you all for your sweet comments! I think many of us have common threads running through our lives even though we are hundreds if not thousands of miles apart! ~ Diane

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  13. Love how you are clutching the kitty like it were your doll. Very cute!

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