It's Love Thursday!

I love this photo of our little family (circa 1978) for a few reasons:

1. My grandma took this photo, and in every photo she has ever taken, someone is cut off or out of focus. Her other 'usual' is to write in black pen or marker on the front of the photo who everyone is. I see this photo escaped that wrath ...

2. My son looks almost exactly like me at this age (two). And my mom has made my outfit, so with a 'boy name' and 'boy clothes', I was well on my way to earning the nickname "Fred" by the lady at the drugstore downtown. She called me for years and years after.

3. My dad has a hot sweater on (so stylin'!), but more importantly, he's sporting a package of Swisher Sweets cigars. And if he's got those in his pocket, it means this was my mom's side of the family over to our house for Christmas. My dad's parents would have been horrified. He left a Swisher Sweet (half-sucked on, ack) on the table one year, and I ate it all. My mom was so upset with him.

4. That piano. I'm still so sad my mom sold it - it was such a beautiful piece of work. I remember sitting at that piano the day they took it away, crying. I loved that piano.

5. It's Christmas 1978, and I pulled the Christmas tree over on myself that year. My mom said she heard a crash, ran into the living room, and the tree was toppled over, me underneath mumbling, and the ornaments scattered around. She put it up on a table after that.

So what do I love this week?

I love old photos, and I love thinking back to happier times. They seemed happier then, anyway. I have no doubt that there wasn't unhappiness and issues and trouble in our lives and certainly in the world.

But in my world, then, everything was just alright.

"What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen." ~Cynthia Ozick