Old Family Images

Torch Lake, Michigan

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Unless some tragedy has befallen us, like a catastrophic fire or a hurricane, many of us have collections of old photographs in our families.  Sometimes these images are mysterious, with  unknown people long gone, saved because the image has been passed down like a sacred object.  Sometimes the images are artful.  Often they hold our attention because we wonder about distant ancestors and how their lives have somehow shaped our own.  Sometimes they are pictures of our parents when they were younger or of ourselves in what looks like a different world.  

My family has boxes of old images from both my mother's and my father's side.  Some of them have been scanned, and occasionally I work on them--cleaning them up and trying to make them so that they look more like they did when they were taken.  

My Mom, in Enterprise, Alabama where she grew up.  My parents have two cats today and so do we.

My Dad during a bike trip in Michigan where he grew up, long before mountain bikes.

The Grimes, on my mother's side, in Alabama.

My Mom's father, Oscar Lee McCall, at his furniture store in Enterprise.

My Dad with his mother, Nelle, in Arizona.

Me and my sister, Kim, being treated to a Coke at my grandfather's store in Alabama.

My dad and grandmother, "somewhere out West."  Their trips west and the stories about them led me to Wyoming.