A week ago I posted a piece titled Dreams. In order to enhance the piece I added some photos from my collection of family pictures. I found two pictures that I was looking for for years. I remembered these shots very clearly. I accidentally found them on that day. What this did was to open a brain lobe to memories from long ago. The photo of the beautiful young lady posing with the VW bug is burned into my memory forever. The day I took this photo was October 15, 1961. I remember because the photo was of my two first loves. My wife Barbara, and my first car. October 15 is one day after Barb and I got married. The place was on the Lake Michigan shoreline near the Adler Planetarium. One could say this was the first page of the first chapter of our love story.
Sunday morning a summer storm raced through Frankfort. At five a.m. I rolled out of bed to make pit stop, and the morning sky was bright blue with July sunshine. I jumped back in bed and was sleeping soundly for the second time when thunder and lightening woke me up at eight-thirty. The day was dark and stayed dark all morning and into the early afternoon. The storm did not be finish until late afternoon. It is the kind of day that Barb and I would have said let’s just spend the day in bed lolling around. Often on days like this we did just that, with one exception lolling evolved into loving, and loving took us back into deep sleep. My how a person can dig up these memories from so long ago, in this case it has been fifty-nine years. In my mind I long to return to those days, but my body tells me no, don’t even try. Number-one I don’t have a partner any more, and number-two my libido has all but disappeared, and three, if I did have a drop of libido left it wouldn’t be enough to make the magic happen.
Between the gloomy day, and finding those old pictures I started looking at photos from days gone by. Like when my kids were little, and then their wedding pictures and all the way up to the birth of their kids. I finally began slowing down taking pictures when the grandkids were in college.
I have seven natural grand children and three step grand children from Peggy. Of the seven one is now a pharmacist, her sister is a nurse their brother is a junior at Texas A&M University studying Astro Engineering. My Daughter’s son is a chef, his sister is a junior in high school, and my oldest son’s oldest son is a junior in high school, his young brother is just starting high school. Ding Dong! The door bell rings, and my daughter arrives with her husband. This post stops.
Now it is Monday, and I have lost the thread of thinking that started this post. It had something to do with old pictures, but I lost the direction I was headed in. Right now I must change the theme and wake up another brain cell to complete this story. All I can conjure is that after finding two old pictures on a very gloomy stormy day I spent an hour looking through my file of 26,000 digital photos to open many old memories. The day went by fast.
I think I was headed in the direction of how time flies, and reviewing old photos reminds us of that time. I often remark to my friends how quickly the days pass, and then remind myself that when the days begin to drag my clock spring may be wearing out. Eventually, the days will drag to the point of making life unbearable. Since Peggy died my days seem longer, and I believe that dragging time in my life is nearing, I can tell.
Filed under: Aging, Biography, family, Memories | Tagged: grandchildren, Stormy Days, VW Bug, Wedding Anniversary | 2 Comments »
Last week my cousin Rick sent me a recipe called “The Most Dangerous Cake Recipe in the World.” It sounded cute, and just the type of experiment I would try with my grandchildren. Before I began, I Googled “Five Minute Chocolate Cake,” and got 137,000 hits in .22 seconds. There must be something to this, I thought. I read several of the recipes, and the comments left by cake lovers from all around the world. They were serious about this yummy chocolate cake.
