Pictures

I'm so glad my niece, Lori, is BLOGging. She gives me so many ideas for topics to put on my own BLOG.

Pictures -- her last BLOG was about how difficult it is to get a "good" picture. I was thinking about that. I take a lot of pictures, and I have more bad pictures of my grandchildren, than good ones. I keep few of the bad ones.

When I ask a child to smile I get a smirk, a crooked grin, a dentist-style show-me-your-teeth grin, a sneer, a leer, and even an occasional frown. But it is not often that I get a beautiful smile from them. The babies do okay until they get to be about four years old, then the smirking, sneering, leering, and frowning begins.

I'm getting to my point, be patient.

My father took many, many pictures. And when you put pictures on film, not onto a memory card to be scanned at a later time, you got what you shot. If the kids weren't perfectly coiffed, it didn't matter, because that was the charm of the photo.

I have so many photos of my siblings in which we are, well, how can I put this, antsy, out-of-sorts, unhappy, not wishing to say "cheese." So, to you parents out there who are bemoaning not getting a great pictures of your children to pass on to friends and family, be glad, be very glad you're not working with film -- think of how expensive that would be. Developing a whole role for just one picture?

I think the top picture shows this precisely. It's a church picture. I was wearing a size 11 at taht time. Wow! But look at Phil, obviously, not a great smile. Cyndi could always smile nicely and look like she was enjoying herself. Becky, as well. I have to say that I still had pimples (obviously) when I was in my 30s. So, if you're a teenager and you're reading this, dont' believe it when they tell you that when you're 21 the pimples will disappear. They do not.

The next picture was taken at the Music Palace and we were clowning around, obviously. I don't think Cyndi will be happy to have this picture on the WWW (that's her in front, do the Cyndi dance).

The next picture: Obviously, Deb's hair is, well, not exactly combed well. Mom is clearly trying to control Carl, and Carl, never one to be controlled is doing his own thing. But you see what I mean?

The other picture -- You will notice that my father had his hand on my shoulder making sure I kept still. And Deb's a baby, so you get what you get with babies. I think, though, it's a nice picture of the small (at that time) family.

And remember, some day you will love those "messed up" pictures because they will remind you what your children were like when they were little. They aren't picture perfect, and certainly not perfect. They're just children. Enjoy the messes.