Old Photos

Ned moved in here for a few days to help Walt with any post-op needs he may have. I put off doing anything, hoping to be of help.

Walt?  He went to the grocery store by himself this morning!

He has minimal pain and the only discomfort is the one he has been enduring for months now, that of a catheter, which will be removed on Friday.  So the surgery appears to have been a great, uncomplicated success.  So far.  

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Ned has spent the last several weeks trying to organize things and get rid of stuff, collecting it for a garage sale.  It has all lived in a growing pile in the living room, but he decided to start pricing things and moving everything to the garage, so there is room for socializing in that room when Tom Laurel and the girls arrive, at which time we will probably celebrate our Christmas a week or so early.

Part of the sorting through stuff removed from upstairs was the voluminous collection of photos -- framed photos, photos in books, loose photos.  My photos, my mother's photos, my father's photos.  Single photos, duplicate photos and, in some cases quadruple photos (of Dave's funeral, taken by a good friend, who then decided we would want 4 of everything).

There were a lot of photos of gatherings of my mother's family, which I spent the afternoon scanning for the family group on Facebook, since the now 3rd and 4th generation kids don't know a lot of these people

This, for example is a group photo of the remaining 8 at Uncle Jim's funeral.  Aunt Mel had died many years before.  The lady in the pink standing next to my mother is my Aunt Marge, who was Peach's mother and who was one of my mother's closest friends.  On Marge's other side, in white, is Cathy's mother, Barb.

There was a whole book for the family reunion of 1982, which was held at a motel.  My crazy cousin Clancy, whom nobody had seen in a very long time, decided that everybody should be tossed into the pool, including 80-something year old Aunt Marie and our freshly arrived Brasilian student whose hatred for us for 3 weeks probably stemmed from this indignity.

Clancy

I found a book of photos from my mother's retirement party.  I knew almost none of the people, but there was one of the nicest photos I've seen of my father in his later years.

It would be just a few weeks later that my mother would let him know that she was leaving him.

And it was nice to have photos of my mother's parents

I think I have actually now been through all of my mother's photos and albums, which is one smidgen of what is left to do (I found another big box of my own photos two days ago).  Of course when they are all sorted and tossed or not, then there comes to decision of what to do with what is left over.