~it was only a picture~

My mom was always good at remembering stuff.  At our restaurant back home in Haven, Kansas she would begin cooking a customer's breakfast order before any of the waitresses could even stab the guest check onto the spindle of the kitchen pass through window.  I'm not sure how she always knew just how a certain customer would always like their eggs cooked but she did.  It's been more than 30 years since I last saw her do that kind of thing and she's been in her Heavenly home since 2007 but one thing is for certain.

I still remember it.
Old pictures like the ones shown below always seem to trigger the memory of those days so long ago.

These photos are not of the best quality, for sure by today's standards, but to me they are more priceless than any image that a fancy digital camera of today could take.  The one on the left shows my two grandmothers in April of 1967 on the opening day of our family's restaurant.  They were so very proud of what their children (my folks) had been able to accomplish.  The one on the right shows that "infamous" spindle that sat in the window between the front part of the restaurant and the kitchen.  If I had $1 for every order that was ever placed upon it in the ten year's time that they were in business there.....well, I'd have a lot of dollars.

Things have been a little busy here at our house along the Western Slopes and as of late, I have felt more and more like the "plate spinner" guy from the old Ed Sullivan Show.  So far, no plates have fallen thank goodness.  One of those things I'm finding myself juggling is the need to continue to sort out my photos and make sure that they get into the hands of the people that I want to have them.  It's important enough for me to get it accomplished that I keep plugging away at it, slowly but surely.  When I saw the photos above in one of my old albums, I just had to stop and remember those days.
You remember them, don't you?

The "good old days."

There is this one photo album among many that contains old photos that were taken with cameras from the days of my youth.  In those days you needed a flash bulb and a roll of film before you could ever dream of taking a picture and with a limited number of shots in all, you were pretty choosy about what you took a picture of.  There were no "do overs" if someone didn't like the way their hair looked or if their eyes were closed.  You got what you got and you took it to the local drugstore in town and had them sent away to be developed.  I look at those photos now and really, I have to smile.  They are priceless not perfect and that's all right with me.

Little Scotty Alvarez and I back when he was five and I was 20.  My parents took a liking to him and his family and literally took them them under their wings.  It was Scotty's birthday and my mom wanted to be sure he had a birthday cake to enjoy.  I was on my knees so that I could help him hold it but it does make it look as though I'm even shorter than I already am.  Obviously whoever took the photo (probably Mom) was standing way off to the side so poor Scotty and I had to look the other way.

Obviously the photographer didn't bother telling everyone to "look this way" before taking this picture back in 1958 on the occasion of my Scott grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary.  Some looked this way, some looked that way and some don't even pay attention at all.  For the record, I'm the little tiny girl in braids sitting on my sister Sherry's lap and WE were the only ones looking the correct way.  Just for the record.

The sun must have been really bright and in our eyes that morning back in 1972 when my very good friend from high school named Kerrie and I stood outside St. Paul Lutheran Church back home in Haven for this photo.  It was a Palm Sunday morning and we were going to be baptized and confirmed into the Lutheran faith together.  We were happy and glad to be finished with our confirmation class.  It was Kerrie's future mother-in-law who would take this photo.  I still remember that outfit that I was wearing.  It was a lilac color and I recall it as well as if it were hanging in my closet today.

There was no special setting on the camera that took this photo to indicate "someone blinked" on the day that my Scott grandparents posed for a photo with 6 of their 8 children.  Grandma Scotty's eyes may have been closed for this one but that doesn't matter.  I know what her eyes looked like and what is more important to me is that my father (back row left) and his siblings are all together in a picture with their parents.  Every single one of them is now gone and a photo like this one, Grandma's eyes shut or not, will never be taken again.

Ok now all I have to say about this one is that I probably didn't like sitting still for my mom to cut my bangs.  That's all I have to say about it.  Ok well there is one other thing.  She's the little girl that still lives within me and the one who, from time to time, reminds me that it's all right to still be a kid.

I'm kind of glad that on my list of "60 things to do before I turn 60 this year" item #18 admonishes me to get all those pictures organized and taken care of.  It's a project long over due and although I may not get to all of them, I will get to all that I can.

In her later years, Mom would always keep one of the "throw away" kinds of cameras on hand and when people came over to visit, she'd often take a picture of them.  Those old cameras took many a snapshot, just like the priceless one shown below.  My mom looked so pretty and happy as she stood alongside her firstborn son, my brother Mike.  They are both gone now and today, on the occasion of what would be my brother's 70th birthday, how very glad I am that I have it to remember them both by.

It was only a picture, taken of a mother and son, from a throw away camera that cost less than $5 to buy.  They paused in that moment in time and stood for a photo together and never realized how much it might mean to their family in the days and months and years that would lie ahead.

It was only a picture.