Give Thanks...A Photo And The Memories

 We did some cleaning last week, stuff buried in boxes in the garage. I sometimes wonder why I keep things in boxes. I don't see them. I don't even know they're there sometimes. They just sit in those boxes, day after day, year after year...

Until one day, we open the boxes and the memories can breathe.

I've kept some things from my LDS mission, things in boxes. While cleaning, I came across my mission discussion booklet, a sort of Clif Notes for teaching the precepts and doctrine used by missionaries when they find someone who is interested in learning more. 

On the day my group was to travel to Denmark, we boarded a plane bound for Seattle, the first leg of our trip. As we waited for the plane to take off, one of the stewards told us some of the Seattle Supersonics basketball players were sitting in first class. A few of us decided to go talk to them.

I don't know who the other players were, but I recognized one...Tom Chambers. For those of a certain age, Tom Chambers was a legend, a local player from the University of Utah who made it to the big leagues, not only made it, but made a career of playing in the NBA. He played for several teams, including the local NBA team, the Utah Jazz. Meeting him was a big deal for a nineteen-year old.

Though he and I had never met, I recognized him and he recognized who we were. "Hello," he said. "Where are you headed?" he asked me.

"Denmark," I said.

"Well, you look like one of them." I remember him saying and I thought that was funny. I asked for an autograph, handed him the only thing on which to write an autograph, and he obliged. After that, the steward quickly ushered us from first class, and we followed her instructions.

The memory was buried in a box in my mind. It came flooding back as I opened the book, remembered the encounter on the plane, and quickly found the signature. Even though the book and the memories have been buried in a box these many years, I'm grateful I saved the book. I'm grateful for the memories on that plane and all the memories that followed in the next couple of years. Seeing what was written in my little book brought many of those memories back to breathe.

When Someone Sends You Memories...

A week or so ago I received three e-mails. I did not recognize the address so I thought they were spam.

Turns out, they weren't spam e-mails at all.

They contained memories.

When you reach adulthood, it means you completed a childhood. We all have memories of our childhood--some good, some bad. I suppose that's true of any stage of life...good days and bad. When I look back on my childhood, I think it was mostly good. I'm sure I'm mostly remembering the good times. Yes, my father passed away when I was eight-years old and my mom had to work full-time from that point forward, but there was never a moment that I can recall that I wasn't fed, sheltered, clothed, and most importantly, loved.

That's a blessed childhood.

After my dad died, our family spent a lot of time with extended families, mostly on my mom's side because her sibling's children were closer in age to my father's sibling's kids. Though, we did spend time with my dad's youngest sibling's families. I remember those days. I remember playing, camping, spending time with cousins--and how I love my cousins--they were a rock for us, mostly for my mom, I'm sure. I remember spending Christmases with them, until, after a few years, they had Christmases with their own families. But, for a pre-teen and teenager, hiking and camping in the Teton mountains was an incredible adventure.

The picture of my mom with her sister-in-law meant the pictures came from family, from a cousin. The e-mail included the words: "And this one of our mothers." This narrows it down.

Then, there's a picture of us Taylors. My brother Alan, sister Tara, and mom. I'm in the back wearing my Mother Karen's ski parka, permed hair, and a big smile. I don't know the identity of the baby--maybe my cousin Kris's first-born, but I can't be sure. You can see in that picture our sofa system, drapes my mom made, and our Hi-Fi. That was our living room and that was our family.

The last picture, well, that's of me and Tasha, our Shih Tzu. I must be thirteen in that photo. The dog lived for seventeen years, lived through my jr. high and high school years, lived through the years I served my mission, graduated from college, got married, and even had our first son. We had to put her down at the end--that spirited little dog had no quit in her.

I don't know who sent me the photos, and if I'm supposed to know, I apologize. Maybe after this post, I'll know. But, whoever it was, thank you! Those are some great photos and some wonderful memories. 

That Time I Was An Award-Winning Photographer...

Did a little cleaning tonight and I came across three photos, three photos I took I think back in 2013. I've taken at least one picture every day since January, 2011. I chose three of those photos to enter them in our county fair photo contest.

I remember thinking I ought to send in some photos--that year I did. There was a time when I wanted to be a professional photographer. That never worked out, but I do consider myself a photographer. I had to scramble to find three pictures I felt were good enough to enter. I'm sure I've taken better pictures than these three, but I was also satisfied with the ones I submitted.

I also remember not knowing anything about how to prepare the pictures, how to showcase them. Needless to say, I did a poor job. I actually used Elmer's Glue to stick the photos to the board stock. You can even see the glue bubbles in the pictures I took of the photos.

Definitely bush league. 

So, I was kind of surprised that I even placed. After looking at the other photographs, I realized almost everyone placed, and if they didn't place, they received a "Participant" ribbon, sort of the "participation trophy" but for pictures.

Each year I've thought about entering other pictures, choosing the best ones from the previous year. But then, the deadline always passes and I forget or get busy with other projects. Of course, this year, the entire event was canceled. 

I've always thought of my photos as a hobby, a fun one, and sometimes one that generates some amazing pictures. Who knows--maybe one day I'll remember the deadline, find some good shots, property mount them on the boards, and enter them in the fair.

I could use some more participation ribbons in my life.

Two Photos...Eleven Years Apart

Years ago--eleven to be exact--my youngest used to love to climb up on our bed when I was working on my laptop. He loved it when I would open up the camera and take pictures of him and me just sitting there. He loved looking at the computer screen, watching himself as if in a mirror, but it wasn't a mirror. I took a lot of pictures of the both of us having fun in front of the laptop camera.

The first picture I ever posted to social media is one of my son and me.

Tonight, as we watched Shark Tank, I asked him if he wanted to take a picture. I showed him the one I posted on January 19th, 2009. He was four at the time.

"I will, if I don't have to hold my hand up to my head," he said.

"No, nothing like that. I just want to see how we look now."

I took the picture. Now, you get to see what eleven years (to the day...) looks like.

As it happens with many families, the youngest child gets the fewest pictures taken of them. It's sad, but true. And what's interesting, at least with our family, when our youngest was born, we used film for the pictures--no digital photography for us twenty-five years ago. Now, everything is digital. I can take a thousand pictures and they're basically free. I can't even imagine what it would cost to develop a thousand pictures back then.

So, instead of a "ten-year photo challenge," here's an eleven-year one. For me, it's just over a decade. For my son, it's a lifetime.

Out Of The 144 Photos I Posted In September, 2011...Only Nine Remain

Every once in a while, I'll check out some past blog posts. I've got a few thousand to choose from (3, 168, to be exact...). I thought I'd see what I wrote about back in September, 2011. Turns out, Google's blog format, Blogger, is great at saving the words, but not the pictures. 

Oh, there are spaces where the pictures once were, but the pictures--almost all of them--are gone. And I don't believe they're ever coming back.

I should say that the pictures weren't that great to begin with. I'm sure some were better than others, but most were...you know...not the most interesting shots out there. Of course, I can't remember all of them. I'm going by memory.

At first, I was a bit disappointed. I thought the words, pictures and videos would be there forever. But of all the blog posts created by bloggers across the world for decades, just keeping track of all the photos would be a massive assignment. I know I wouldn't want it.

I checked out September 30, 2011 and I saw the circle with a line in the middle--missing picture. I scrolled down and saw all the pictures were gone. I looked through all 30 blog posts from September, 2011. I posted 144 photos. Only nine pictures remain, eight from my post on 9/2/11 about a baseball book I bought at the D.I. thrift store (a book, I no longer have...), and one picture of acrylic grapes form a 9/13/11 post--interestingly enough, also about another trip to a different D.I. thrift store. If you've followed this blog, you know I love that place.

I know that over the years I've searched specifically for the post about that book and about acrylic grapes. I believe that's why those pictures pulled up when all the rest are gone. If you want to search those posts, be my guest. They're all located on the right side of this blog post page.

I know nothing lasts forever, even digital blog post entries. Looks like the pictures go first, then I suppose if the internet were to go away, so would all my words. It would be cool to have all these posts published into physical books. But if so, what would I do with them? Of the 144 photos I posted in September, 2011 on my blog, only nine remain. I wonder if anyone will ever see them. Looks like they won't see the others.

And, a decade or so in the future, will the picture I posted today of a missing picture show up? If past is prologue, probably not. Then again, it'll be the right picture after all.

Reminiscing With Mom's Recipes...

It's been over nine years since my siblings and I lost our mother.

Nine years.

Time is a funny thing. Time can move like molasses. And yet, it can race by so quickly, it boggles the mind. In some ways it feels like she's been gone for decades, but a moment later you almost expect to get a call from her to talk about the kids and the day she had.

After she passed, we had to clean out her house to prepare for the sale. She had already chosen the family she wanted in the home her husband almost finished building for her and us. There was so much stuff--she survived the Great Depression after all. It took several days to just remove everything and the memories that flooded back to me as we threw most of it away were almost at times too much to bear.

But not everything was tossed. The other day my mother-in-law brought over boxes of recipes and cookbooks once owned by my mom. I guess we wanted to go through them, but didn't have the time back then. We had the time now.

Over the weekend my wife and I went through the collection, keeping a few of the cookbooks and little else. On thing that I enjoyed was checking out the newspaper clippings. On one side were the recipes, but occasionally, there would be interesting things like society articles, marriage and engagement announcements, and things on the other side. Some of the clippings dated back to the 1960s. It's fascinating to see what was important back in the day.

Looking through the recipes--most of them hand-written, I would say something like, "Fudge recipe," and my wife would respond, "We've already got a couple." My mom had multiple copies of the same recipes time after time. Fudge, homemade caramel, brownies, and various other treats seemed to be her favorite. She even kept several chocolate chip wrappers. It reminded me of when we cleaned out her house, we found so many empty chocolate chip wrappers. We even found an unopened bag of chocolate chips. It had to be at least twenty years old. Classic mom move!

In the end, we threw most of it away, just like we did almost a decade earlier. Like I said, time is strange. At times, it feels like just yesterday she was with us--at others, it's been a lifetime.

Writing On A Wall...

"Hey, you want to see something?"

My neighbor called me over Monday. He bought the house where I grew up, a home my father was building when he died and that we sold after my mother passed away. My neighbor is a builder himself, so as he's provided some much-needed remodeling to the home, he's invited me over to see some interesting sights--some hidden treasures--held within its walls.

He showed me an intact piece of sheetrock. 

"Recognize that?" he asked.

And I did.

Because my father wasn't able to finish the house, our basement was unfinished for years. We had a phone downstairs, a wall-mounted dial phone. This was back when a second phone line was very rare (you had to pay extra $$ for even a second phone line--hard to imagine...). And since none of the walls were finished, when we needed to remember a phone number, we just wrote it on the wall.

There's a bit of a history lesson here as well. Officially, Farmington's seven-digit phone number began with 867. But we only had to dial 7-xxxx to reach someone in town. That's why most of these numbers only had 7, then the number.

I remember some of the names, but most I have forgotten. I think the number with the area code of 714 was to a relative, most likely my Uncle Arlin and Aunt Coralle. They lived in Chino back then. 

Other times when my neighbor has invited me over, he's shown me something interesting my dad did when building the house. We both agree the man was ahead of his time. I've said on this blog before, but I know he would have loved to see all the amazing things that have been invented, especially over the past two decades. I'm sure he'd have the latest iPhone.

I'm glad my neighbor called me over. He wanted to show me the wall before he broke it up and threw it away. I'm glad he did and I'm glad I took some pictures. It brought back a lot of memories.