I had lunch the other day with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while and, during our conversation, she mentioned that I hadn’t written much lately.
True.
But that’s the kind of thing Vince would have said to me
that would’ve spurred me on to write a blog – mostly because if I didn’t,
he’d keep after me about it until I did.
But he – like my friend – only did it because he
thought I had a talent and he wanted me to share it with the world. Or at least
my little corner of it.
And, clearly, it works. Because here I am – writing.
I have written before about my photo scanning project. Yeah,
that’s still happening and has seemingly taken over my life lately. The project
feels interminable. I would estimate I’ve scanned maybe 4-500 photos, and I feel like I've only just cracked the surface.
Yikes.
If I were simply scanning them and throwing them all into a
single computer file, that’d be one thing. But I’m scanning them for other
people, too – so I’m labeling each one and adding them to multiple folders for
multiple people.
Sometimes the ol’ memory isn’t what it used to be so I can’t
always remember the year the photo was taken.
It’s a good thing we have the Latin word circa
meaning around or about. It’s used in history to indicate an approximate timeline
or date. And, sure, it’s used a lot to describe major historic battles or events
that changed the history of the world during which accurate records might have
been lost.
But I say I can also legitimately use it in Jane’s Domain to
indicate when an epic Halloween bash was held and I can’t remember the exact
year.
Not having to think so hard makes my head hurt a little less anyway. Seriously. I study the photo, analyzing the clothing, hairstyles and background and then I hypothesize about the season and year it may have been taken. It would have been SO MUCH EASIER if I had simply written the year and occasion on the back when I took the photo.
No wonder this project is going to take forever.
Sometimes it's not the year that stymies me - but the names of some of the people IN the photo. For example, I was scanning a photo from a friend’s wedding in the early 80s. There was a photo of me with two of our guy friends from the dorms at Ohio State. I could clearly recall the one guy’s name, but the other one eluded me. I was determined to remember it (and came close to calling my college roommate because I knew she would remember), but in the end I just didn’t include his name. Figured if it came to me, I could go back in and add it.
And then, a few days later I was at the doctor’s office –
and the mystery guy’s name suddenly popped into my head and I actually blurted
it out loud. Fortunately, I was in the inner sanctum by myself waiting for the
doctor to come in. Had I said his name out loud while she was in there with me,
she may have ordered a complete set of other tests that had absolutely
nothing to do with the reason I was there.
Anyway, my “little” photo project is still ongoing. But I
have had some fun moments reliving old memories and I’ve actually enjoyed the
experience. Sort of. If only I didn’t have such a mess of containers in my
office and living room. I’m afraid if I put them out of sight each day, I might
not feel the urgency to continue the job.
One of the hurdles I managed was to get through the dozens
and dozens of small photo albums of my parents’ travels. Little Post-Its are
sticking up in the books of the photos that I intend to scan because they
are good pictures of my parents and I think my siblings would appreciate having
them.
My dad took the time to label almost every photo using the
old manual typewriter he bought back when I was a kid and he hired me at a buck
a page to type the abstracts he wrote and submitted to the Chemical
Abstracts Service for publication.
Anyway, some of those photos made me laugh only because of
my dad’s subtle sense of humor. I took a picture of the picture in the album (so don't judge me on my scanning skills - the following are not technically scanned!).
In one photo, Dad was standing in a pair of huge clogs typical of Holland. Dad typed, “My, what big feet.” I love the smile on Dad's face!
In another, they were sitting in an open safari vehicle in
Africa when dad took a shot of a hot air balloon up ahead. He wrote, “At $360 a
Trip, I would Rather Ride the Rough Roads.” Ha-ha.
My dad. Always the frugal one.
But I found myself a little verklempt when I saw a
particular photo from a trip to Ireland that my sister and I took with mom and
dad. It was a photo of mom, Denise and me in front of one of the many castles
in the country. And dad wrote, “My three lovely ladies at Kilkenny Castle.”
Awww.
I had a copy of the very same photo, but I had never seen
his caption before.
Dad didn’t always have enough travel photos to fill up each
album, so in some of them he’d insert some random family photos. Various family
gatherings that I had forgotten about, or hadn’t remembered we had taken
photos.
So that was a nice surprise.
And then I came across a photo of Vince and me. It was the
weekend Vince and I had driven to Alliance for my mother’s birthday and it was
the first time he’d met my parents.
Vince had made it a wonderful
birthday celebration for my mom (I’ve written about it here). And after dinner we
were sitting in the family room and apparently my dad had taken our picture. He also took a photo of my brother and his wife. I had completely forgotten that they had come over after dinner to meet Vince, too.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to have found this photo
as it brings back such happy memories. Which makes me exceedingly happy I didn’t
just chuck the entire bin of travel photos when I was cleaning out Mom and Dad’s
house.
Plus, Dad worked so hard on his little photo captions. I’m
glad I was able to have one last look at them all.
So, anyway, that’s my update on the Great Photo Scanning Project of
2023. And speaking of…I should probably get back to it so that I’m not still
writing about this in 2024.
Besides, those photos from that epic Halloween party circa
1983 are not going to scan themselves!
