Over 200 New Looks at the Old Days

I've been away from Blogville for a while. I've been busy. As Autumn will testify, I occasionally have a spasm of scanning old photos into the computer, editing them, and then sending bunches of them out to those who might have interest in them. This bunch this past week included lots of portraits of my first wife, Shayne, of our 4 children, and of places we've lived and places we've visited since our marriage in 1975.

I found a few surprises in this stack of old photo prints. There were facial expressions I hadn't remembered, whole portraits I didn't recall seeing before, and pretty decent photos of old cars and lovely firearms that I'd not seen for a long while. Already, some of you who read this column have been the recipients of some of these pictures. Just in case I missed anybody, I'm going to include some of my favorites here tonight. They're pictures of people and things which are dear to me and which I want everyone to see and appreciate. That's sort of a typical human attitude, isn't it? We love some thing or some person, and we want the whole world to see how wonderful our beloved is. It doesn't always work, but we keep trying, don't we?

So here, in varying degrees of focus and glory, are some of my favorites from the more than 200 I put together several days ago.

Janus's Looking Back Side

We get our word January from the Roman God Janus who had two faces (No jokes, please, ladies.) One looked backwards and the other forwards, just as we all do at this time of year. Already I saw a retrospective on NBC last night about all the great (or thought-to-be-great)personalities we've lost in the year 2008.

I'm looking back a little further tonight. I'm going through all the Christmas photos we've already scanned into the computer and sharing them with you as though you cared, because, as a guy gets older, he begins to think people care about things that matter to him. Strange effect, that, and one which I don't seem to have been able to prevent in the slightest.

I hope to scan all the pictures I've ever taken of my kids into the computer some day. That will be a project of many days and well worth every minute. For now, please let me share with you some of the pictures I DO have scanned into the computer, all of them having to do with Christmas, that most special day of the year, even when it occurs during difficult, sad times. These are my children. Most of you know them. My heart is centred on them and on those who came later.