"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” - Robert Kennedy

“If you think about it seriously, all the questions about the soul and the immortality of the soul and paradise and hell are at bottom only a way of seeing this very simple fact: that every action of ours is passed on to others according to its value, of good or evil, it passes from father to son, from one generation to the next, in a perpetual movement.” - Martha Graham

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First a special note for DJB. I understand what you mean now about havng to restore links and favorites for Firefox. It has found some links that I had deleted months ago --- at least I thought I had. It is missing some I had added. Fortunately, I had backed up my old blogger template in preparation for my "new look", and some of them are there also, so I should be able to recover some of my links from there. The rest will float in the netherlands of computer digitry forever, I suppose! I like to keep my favorites in file folders by topic, but so far I haven't discovered how to add a new empty file folder. I actually had a drop down window that asked "Add new file?", or similar, and I said "Yup!". Nothing happened! Aha! said I in a moment of inspiration. I just need to refresh this page to see it! Nope!

In addition, when I try to save a picture, it automatically defaults to dowloading it to my desktop instead of "My Pictures" which is where I used to find them. I get a popup that I have to use for each and every picture, in order to send the pic to "My Pictures". Another thing on my "Figure it out" list!

My to-do list grows and grows. Damned good thing I'm unemployed and have some time for this < smile!>.

The great news, however, is that it is making a totally remarkable difference in the way my computer runs. It appears to be about twice as fast or more, I have no problems at all now with uploading pics to Blogger, and so on. Overall, worth the trade, absolutely!

Now, back to our regularly-scheduled broadcast, already in progress.....
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Well, I'm going to continue tripping and traipsing down memory lane for a few more entries. You're certainly welcome to join me!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and clicking makes the pictures get bigger. Just so you know!

Remember a couple posts ago I put up a picture of my Grandma and Grandpa when they were quite elderly? Well, just to show the "other end" of life here's a baby picture, taken in 1880.



I'll bet you thought it was of my grandma, eh? WRONG!!! It's my grandpa's baby picture! (Do you think maybe this is where I get it from < snicker! > )



This one is of my Mom all dressed up in her jeans and T-shirt equivalent, ready to go out and play in the mud with her sisters. Actually, judging by the background, I suspect it's one taken in church. What do you figger?

In the next one, she is with one of her sisters. Aren't those head things a hoot!! This aunt was confined to a wheelchair, crippled with Multiple Sclerosis for the better part of the last half of her life. She was an INCREDIBLE writer, but never felt good enough to try and get published. Mom had two younger sisters and no brothers, her youngest sister is still alive, and we're planning on having a 90th birthday party for her at Christmas this year. She's a delightful lady. She and her husband weren't able to have children of their own, so they sort of "adopted" us, and we just grew up treating them like a second set of parents. She was a little more open-minded than my Mom too, and I admit that a few times I had a heart-to-heart with my aunt instead of my Mom. Poor Grandpa...four women in the house, and he had to fend for himself...no wonder they dressed him up in dresses! No, wait! That would have been long before he and Grandma had puppies of their own.



Continuing with the "baby" theme for just a couple more pics. Bear with me, we're getting to the good stuff tomorrow....me!!

There aren't many pictures from my Dad's side of the family, mostly because as I said earlier, they lived on a farm in the Maritimes during the Depression with six kids to feed and clothe, and they didn't own a camera at all. That was a luxury item for them. My paternal grandmother had a heart and soul of the gentlest, kindest person who ever walked the face of this planet. She was a very prim and proper lady-type. Her biggest hope in life was that one of her children would enter the ministry. When none did, she went to work on the grand kids...and I was the youngest, so the pressure was on bigtime. I always felt I let her down jst a little bit, even though everyone else did too! We didn't get to see her often, but I always loved it when we did. She loved telling "when I was a young child like you" stories, and I swear, it seemed like she never had to repeat any because there was an endless supply. It was Ali Baba (ok...test time...who remembers Ali Baba?). She was also a very, very proud woman, and you'll notice that my uncle in the front has his hand on his knee. It's covering up a patch that Grandma didn't want showing. That's probably where my Mom got her feelings about not having my brother's special footwear not show in any pictures of him.




That's my Dad's family. His two sisters were older than him, and he was the oldest boy. I never got to meet his Dad (on the right). He passed before I was born. My Dad is back row right side. Only one uncle is still alive I can't remember exactly, but he's in his early 90's. There's a thousand stories to tell about him and his family too, but they won't mean a thing to you, so I'll be kind and spare you!

A couple more group shots, and that'll do it for today, my friendlies! These next two are probably the two pictures all of us kids appreciate the most. Not too many people would be able to claim what my Mom can claim with these two. We call them the "Four Generation pictures."






This picture was taken in 1907. That's my Mom perched on the little table. Her Mom is holding her, and her Dad is behind-left. The couple standing behind-right are her maternal grandparents, and the couple sitting down are her maternal great-grand parents (Her grandmother's parents). Check out the clothes (especially the starched collars)!




Here's the amazing part. Yup! That's my Mom playing the role of baby again, with her parents right there with her. The couple on the right are her paternal grandparents. You guessed it! The couple on the left are her paternal great-grandparents (Her grandfather's parents). Don't you love the beard on the old coot?!

To have four generations alive on both sides of the family all at the same time I think is quite amazing. Both sides of my family have a history of longevity, with many of my ancestors living well into their 90's and several over a hundred. Maybe that's why I don't bother to take care of my bod very well, do you think? I'm leaving it up to the big guy upstairs to take care of it for me < smile! > .

Drum roll please! This truly is a neat experience for me. The only problem is that now I'm going to be rooting through everything to see if there are forgotten pictures somewhere! BTW, DJB mentioned it the other day. I have a whole bunch of coloured slides. Is there any way to get them uploaded, other than having a colour print made, and then scan from that? If you know a way, I'd sure appreciate hearing about it. Thanks.

Ok, kidlets. That's it for today's lesson. Make sure you don't leave anything in, on or around your desks. Have a great day. And you'll never know when there might be a pop quiz (duh!) Get it? POP quiz? .....POP..Dad...aw, c'mon, I try < smile! > .

PEACE.

Posted by Evydense on Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 3:41 a.m. | Permalink