Sunday, August 17, 2008

Way Back When

For my birthday this year mom gave me photos, mostly of me. Many I didn't even know she had, just as many I didn't remember ever striking the pose. Some of the photos were copies of those I'd given to her some years prior. Mom's been purging, giving away photos, trinkets and other boxed evidence of lives once lived.
I started drawing and painting more, thirty-four years ago completing my first year in high school. A favorite teacher talked me into entering art and craft fairs. Lo and behold I won a few. Mom was there for at least one award ceremony. She came with me once to the Art Institute and from that moment on, she deemed me, "weird."
Daughter asks, "was that a velour shirt?" Indeed it was and while don't remember this the circumstances of this photo, but I do remember that shirt. No doubt it was a hand-me-down from someone, though not my older brother because I was bigger. Mom framed this photo as if daughter needed any further evidence of my lifetime geek-dom.
Twenty years ago I was twenty-eight years old with a young son and even younger daughter. Though un-raveling day by day, the seams of marriage held for nearly another decade more. Besides the joys experienced by being an active participant in the growth of aforementioned son and daughter that decade yielded little in the way of bliss. It was probably the most troubling of the four I've spent in this here life. The three years between 15 and 18 were no cakewalk though.
As you may have guessed looking at the photos has kicked up a dusting of memories. Some good, some bad, some vivid and some a tad fuzzy. The memories and the photos sparking same are evidence of a life once lived, for better or worse, it is the way it was.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing the picture and the memories.

    Hey...velour was cool back in the 70's...for like....a WHOLE month...or so...or...well...if YOU wore it...it was because it was definitely cool!

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  2. uh...that should have been picturessssss...sorry

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  3. Anonymous7:33 AM

    OMG I LIVED in velour shirts LOL

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  4. Velour was the shit back then. And I don't mind admitting I'd wear it again.

    You look like a teenager in the "28 yr old" photo.

    I hope you'll share more with us. For some reason, I just love looking at other people's old pictures.

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  5. Deborah... all the memories and stuff got you where you are right now. Just where you're supposed to be. So look back at it all and smile. It's all good from this perspective and the stuff that was bad, welp, it's over with now.

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  6. One of my favorite writing exercises is to take an old photo and write its story whether I have a strong, vague or no recollection of it ever having happened. Great fun excavating through pics! Yay mom!

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  7. I always wanted a velour shirt and never had one. I'm jealous now. Really, really jealous.

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  8. I still have a velour shirt and once it gets cold I wear it around the house all the time. It is getting a bit worn out but it keeps me warm when I have the furnace on 62. Great pics...give us more.

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  9. I just love these pictures of you.

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  10. Anonymous8:16 PM

    Those pictures are awesome. So glad you shared them. There is absolutely nothing like 'found' photographic evidence to spur one's memory nodes into action.

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  11. Anonymous8:01 AM

    I had a red velour shirt in the 3rd grade.

    I loved that thing... literally to DEATH.

    To this day I have to be careful of buying things like that. If the material I am wearing is too nice to the touch, I'll spend all day rubbing my fingers up and down the arms of my shirt... and people start looking at you funny after a while of doing that :)

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  12. Velour needs to make a comeback.

    As does rich corinthian leather.

    Squee!

    I just love looking at people's pictures. Bring 'em on, I'm here for the duration.

    Oh, and one more thing? Mark up the back of said pictures with your names and year and such. Sad to say, but 30 or 50 years from now nobody's going to know us anymore.

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