DocAndersen
Are memories the measure of a person? What we recall about someone, is that what makes them special to us? Or is there more to the world than what we recall? My father loved the outdoors. The following pictures today come from his folder Wildflowers #3. There are two more slide trays labeled Wildflowers. Later dad changed his organizational system for slides. It’s funny the evolution of how we store the pictures that hold tight to the memories with the click of a shutter. It is the depression of the shutter that locks the memory right? But is it? I ask myself that often, memories are more than pictures. They say, they were unknown, but if you listen they are always speaking, a picture is worth 1000 words. But whose words and what picture?
You see today I am sharing 15 or so of my father’s pictures. But the platform of the blog is limited to 3500 characters. Far less than the 15000 words the pictures deserve. Each picture is floating in cyberspace to wander to your browser. My father loved plants. I remember as a child going on walks with him, dad always leading the pack. Always in front of us. I never thought about that until just now. He was in front so he could stop and, in finest latin speak the scientific names of flowers and plants that lie beside the path. Genus and family, carefully enunciated so that we could hear. The names in Latin are floating in the air the plants, and then sadly floating right out of my head.
I don’t remember the names. But I do remember the walks. I remember complaining. Every time, as we prepared to go outdoors. Dad ignored me for the most part. I suspect sometimes he got frustrated. He also never stopped, the names of the plants flowing long past the time of the walks. When I was an adult, living in another city. He would when I would visit, hand me book by an author on the great outdoors. I read every one of those books dad!
To end where I began the organizational system of the slides leaves me a reflective thought. The things a father finds important enough to pass to their child. Are they memories or are they a piece of us?
Wow, he sure had an eye right?
he loved photography. His oldest sister taught him and his father.