Friday, October 21, 2011

Events

Just had an unusual event.

My wife and I was leafing through the channels, amazed how little was on, and got to talking about how life will be different when our daughter is at college. That segued into thinking about how we enjoyed being with the people we know in France -- it seems, still, a little presumptuous to call them our friends, even though that's how I think of them -- and how we're looking forward to their arrival here next year. My wife said that we really ought to look at the pull-out couch in what had been my mother's living room, to see if it was usable at all for them. Our conclusion was 'not for anyone over 50 pounds', so we're going to get one of those foam toppers and put it on there, see how it goes. While we were in there, my wife mentioned that she'd found a box of stuff in my mother's closet, including some old pictures. I looked at them, and was surprised to see images of not only my uncle (my mother's brother) from 1945 or so, when he was in the Navy, but also images of my grandfather's Army unit from 1913, when he was part of the troops that worked along the border with Mexico. And there was even a letter from my uncle to his parents from his ship! Made us wonder whether my mother had even remembered that she had that stuff, and how much stuff we have that we haven't even mentioned to our daughter. I mean, to us, it's just stuff, but to her.... might be interesting.

I don't get nostalgic, but looking at those pictures, I came close.

2 comments:

genderist said...

dad had my grandfather's medals gathered and put in a fancy shadow box with a pic from him when he was in the military - very sharp - i've already called dibbs for it because it's that awesome

Cerulean Bill said...

I know that it shouldn't, but it comes as a surprise to realize that these people were young, once, and they had a life that had nothing to do with us. I've got a snapshot of my father in his early twenties, sitting in the drivers seat of a bulldozer in Bermuda. My father? Drove a bulldozer? In Bermuda?