The Way-Back Machine
You don't need to be Peabody of the old Rocky and Friends to use a "Wayback Machine." I was doing some of that myself last week when finally getting around to scanning some old (50+years) slides into digital format. The one at the left is my Dad and his father taken sometime in 1955. My dad was 50. His dad was 79.

Two things struck me. First, my Dad looks so much older than 50 (at least to me.) Some of that may be that to me he look likes he did when I was a kid. (I was 7 when this picture was taken- by me!) Within 9 years they were both gone. So memory plays the tricks of keeping them an "old age" when in reality, to me today, 50 is not old. (Of course, as they say, "old" is 15 years older than you are at the moment. That would mean that at least for the next five years, my grandfather will still look old.)

The second thing that struck me was that they were both wearing ties just sitting in our living room relaxing. Here's another picture of my parents- on vacation near Niagara Falls, Canada. Both are what today we might call "dressed up." Today you go on vacation and you "dress down." Many pictures I have of my dad, even sitting at home like above, are with a tie and white shirt on. We don't realize how much times change until we stop and look back at something like this.

The power of memory and the grace we have today of being able to supplement that with pictures like these. I only vaguely remember that trip to the Niagara Falls, Canada area in 1956. But I can remember the pictures. In some ways they become more of the memory than the actual events which now are so far back in time as to be vaguely there.

Thank you George Eastman.