A couple of Christmases ago my mom gifted to me and my sisters our choice of photos from her old photo albums. She had dumped them all into a large box and we spent all day sifting through them. Call it bobbing for memories. It was a unique gift with immeasurable value. Not everyone has photos from their wee lil’ years. My wife doesn’t. My closest friend had all his childhood photos eaten by a fire several years back. Some people just had parents who never took photos (an issue Gabby does not have).
I gobbled up several dozen photos and later ordered them in my own special album. Every so often I like to glance through it. I try to see some semblance of Gabby and I (She actually favors strongly one of my sisters.) I also enjoy looking back at my class photos from elementary school. I have just about every grade. The one above is from Mrs. Burgess’ second-grade class, circa 1981. That’s twenty-five years and thousands of No. 2 pencils ago. I’ll let you guess which one is I.
When my stepdaughter first saw this photo she expressed shock. “Wow,” she said. “You sure had a lot of black people in your class.” Hmmm. I’d never really considered the racial composition of my youth, but looking back, yeah, I was part of a rainbow connection. That photo sports a racial blend you just don’t see often here in the mountains. Back home it was normal. At least, I think it was.