a stroll through time

 I was scrolling through my camera roll, isn't it funny how we adopt these new terms, camera roll. The camera roll is on my phone which I don't think of as a camera, but the camera as an accessory to the phone. Isn't it a bit confusing? I'm showing my age a bit with all of that. But anyway I'm scrolling, not to be confused with strolling, although we would all benefit from strolling more and scrolling less, when I notice an image I didn't recall. It's an image not a photograph because it isn't on photographic paper but rather composed of bits and bytes! Really just a series of zero's and one's. A lot of them. I can't really explain how that works but I know that is how it is. So this image is one I decide I would like printed, turned into a photograph. Off to Walmart to use the kiosk! How many of us ever heard of a kiosk growing up. Just when did that word appear on the scene? Looking it up I discovered a kiosk was a small pavilion in the center of a garden during the 13th century. That was during the Ottoman Empire! The footstool was already around by then, the Ottoman's didn't invent that, just the kiosk. Later the British starting calling their telephone booths a kiosk. then the newsstands, and finally the picture printing machine at the Walmart! So this morning I'm telling you I went to use the kiosk at Walmart. Nothing to do with a garden in the Ottoman Empire although the telephone does have a connection to that. A " connection " to that, get it? Anyway, I did get my image printed on photographic paper. That happened via a digital transfer from the cloud, to my device. through the kiosk and eventually the printer. Took all of five minutes. Rather an amazing thing really. That image was originally captured by my father in 1960 using a Brownie camera. That image was on a roll, the camera roll? No, it was a roll of film. That roll had been mailed to a processing laboratory, that's what we called those places, and subsequently exposed. After being exposed it was then printed on photographic paper. And now, a copy of that image is in a frame on my wall.
 Oh the picture. It is a picture of my Mom, my siblings and I. We are sitting on the tailgate of what I believe to be a 56 Ford station wagon. I can't be certain as I would have been about seven years old when the picture was taken but I think that car was a tan color. Seems to me it had a rather large front bumper and that Dad had used that as a snow plow. It's one of those old family stories that you remember, sometimes you remember the story and not the actual event but you can't separate those in your mind. Do you know what I mean? I just remember we had several feet of snow and Dad using that ford station wagon as a battering ram to get out of the driveway. By driveway I mean a dirt lane about 100 yards long! Back up and go forward, back up and go forward. It was successful and no damage to the car. Well that was when they made cars that would stand up to some abuse. And Gee does Mom look young in that picture. Truth be told we all look young in that picture. It was sixty years ago, another fact that is hard to grasp at times.
 I did frame the picture and put it on the wall alongside the others. I sure do enjoy those old photo's and the memories associated with them. Each has a story to tell and now I get to be the author. I don't remember sitting for that picture, but I do remember the car, I think. No matter, I'm writing the story now and I get to tell it my way. Frank Sinatra sang that song, My Way, in 1969. Did you know Paul Anka was a co-writer of that? I'm not a songwriter, I'm a memory writer, and I will write them my way. " Regrets, I've had a few, but then again too few to mention" so I won't write about them.  It was a pleasant surprise to sit on the tailgate of that old ford once again, back in time.

                                                                       

Tailgating with Mom.