“Family life is full of major and minor crises -- the ups and downs of health, success and failure in career, marriage, and divorce -- and all kinds of characters. It is tied to places and events and histories. With all of these felt details, life etches itself into memory and personality. It's difficult to imagine anything more nourishing to the soul.” - Thomas More

I can't help but wonder if perhaps I've left a wrong impression with you, dear reader, about my family and my relationship with them. In case I have, let me set the record straight! I love my family. We have lucked out and not had a whole lot of major personal crises to deal with other than expected ones. Sure, we've had some difficulty with school work, and we have our own version of "the family secret", and sure my folks were much, much too strict to be healthy. But they did it as best they knew how, and in what they felt were in our best interests. As it turns out, they weren't right on target. We survived, though.

Do I have much in common with them now? No, not really. Our interest, directions and goals are in quite different directions from each other.

But we're still family. And I know they're there if I need them, and they know the same of me. So, since I had so much fun tripping through the old family photo album yesterday, I thought I'd bring you a few more excerpts of blasts from my past.

I know! I know! It's like the guy on the commuter train pulling out all the pictures of his kid and insisting you drool over them. Well, fortunately, you have a little 'x' in the upper right hand corner if you like!

(all of them enlarge somewhat if you do a pic-click!)




Besides the three yesterday when I was a few months old, this is the only baby picture of me in existence. Pretty rare stuff! (Check out my Mom's high-fashion dress!)





This was a picture of the family having a picnic at Butternut Bay, a place where my grandparents had a summer house. Unfortunately, it was taken in 1947, the year before I was born! See that white thing in front of my brother Pete (very right hand side of picture)? Mom always did that with pictures of him. He was born club-footed, and had to go through a number of very painful operations where they gradually forced his feet straight. He wore special boots with a metal bar between them, and each day, they would force them to turn a bit more. I remember my aunt was visiting one time, and was baby-sitting, and she was doing the adjustment for him. She could see he was in a lot of pain, and asked him how much she should adjust it. He said "Until I start crying." The poor kid was only 4 or 5. Today, you couldn't tell by looking at him that he ever had the problem.

I happen to think that this is an outstanding photo of my Dad in particular. This was taken 1n 1947, I was born in 1948, he passed in 1975, and this picture pretty much could have been taken at any point in his life during that period, as far as I'm concerned.

My Dad always used to insist that he never looked good in a picture (not in a vain way, of course), and wasn't particularly comfortable in front of the lens. It must be a genetic thing, because I absolutely hate having my picture taken, and I don't think I've ever seen one that shows me how I see myself yet! It's always about how someone else sees me!! (Gee whiz, mackey, maybe a possible photo shoot next time you need portraits, or faces, or whatever! If anybody could resurrect some semblance of charm and good looks out of this mug, I bet it'd probably be the likes of you!)


(That was a compliment, BTW!!)




This is Pete again, having been just "knocked out" by our other brother Rob. (Rob's the second youngest, Pete the third, my sister the 4th. There are two years between each of us, then my oldest brother is 4 years older than my sister. The house in the background of the pic in the lower left is where I spent the first six years of my life. After that, we moved to a 20-acre lot outside the city, and Dad pretty much spent the rest of his free time building/finishing our new house. That was my parent's dream, and they did a pretty good job of it. I loved sitting on that veranda in the old house during a big thunder and lightning storm, though. That, and all the kids in the neighbourhood to play with were what I missed the most when we moved. Our new house had the outside walls and windows installed, and drywall around three walls of one bathroom, with a curtain for a door. We had our own well for water (that would freeze up several times a winter, until my bro's and I dug up the pipeline by hand one summer and discovered a leak in it.






My sis could be very focussed when she wanted to be!





My brother, Pete again, having his very first soft drink ever. Check out the car!! And do you remember running boards?!





My brother Rob with his angel-face hiding the mischief behind it. It's always the innocent-looking ones that are the most guilty, have you ever noticed?





And more pictures of Rob. See the Schmoo in the bottom left picture? Does anyone rememeber where they came from, and what they were good for? (Hint: a comic strip)

(NOTE: This is your lucky day, my friendlies! Blogger decided at this point to discontinue allowing me to upload pictures. And I only had two more to go. < pout! >


PEACE.

Posted by Evydense on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 11:26 p.m. | Permalink