Old Albums, Lost Memories

 Old Albums, Lost Memories

While I was looking for something else, I found an old album of photographs from my mother-in-law, Retha Johnson Morrison. It holds old photos of friends and relatives. Some I recognize and others, I have no idea who they are.

I wish that she would have written on the back side names and dates, now unless I can get someone to help they will remain nameless and probably be tossed out into the trash. I hope to label as many as I can or hide them until they become antiques and someone wants to safely store them for the beauty and strength seen in each person’s face.

Although there’s a place for colored pictures there is a special ambience to the black and white photos. The viewer is drawn by the expressions seen in the faces and not pulled aside by the color of their clothing or by colors of the background. Eyes are drawn to faces, the hair styles, and their clothing that draws viewers into the history of the moment.

It causes me to pause and try to imagine what it was like to have been living then. A time where manual labor jobs outweighed the clerical ones, small time farmers fed the nation as well as themselves, and American’s were free to worship as they chose. The wash was done by hand and dried outside all year long. There were vehicles with horse powered sleighs, wagons,single engine jobs topped with a saddle. Clothing was often hand sewn and worn until it was outgrown and passed down, or until it was too patched to be anything left but a rag.

Long distance was yelling across the street or valley or a written letter if you could afford a stamp. Telephones were just coming into vogue with party lines and the social media was found in the newspaper’s society page. Jobs were scarce, but we protected our borders. We welcomed others from distant lands and incorporated their heritage into ours. They came to become Americans not to change it into the system of government that they’d just left behind.

America is the land of hope and promise. It was a beacon for the poor and oppressed. They were welcomed if they entered legally, assimilating to the governing laws of America to became citizens of our nation.

I know that everything isn’t in black and white, but the shades of gray have become the norm not the foundation that our country was founded on and there’s no gray written in the words of our Constitution. It spells out exactly what states are responsible for and what each branch of government should do. It lists the limits of those powers. Let’s go back to the black and white of our forefathers.