It is not a daunting task to wander old pictures. Today, some pictures my father put in a folder he called MISC. I do not know why he had the folder on his computer. I know at various times, I told him he needed to move the pictures off the memory card, and onto the hard drive of the computer. Then, from time to time, burn a CD with the pictures on it. That would give him three copies (he never erased the memory cards when they got full he bought a new one)! My memories of the last couple of years mom and dad had the farm different. I was often out to the farm for Sunday dinner, until we moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was a 2.5-hour drive (3 hours when we lived in Maineville).
We didn’t come to the farm as often after June 1991 (we got married on the deck of the farm). We had moved to Cincinnati on June 1, I had resigned as a teacher, and we were now an Ohio family! After the wedding, we still came back to Indiana often, but always then for big holidays. Mom and dad moved back into town (Bloomington) while we were in Ohio. It is funny how, as an adult, your life pulls into work. Moving to Ohio was a huge transition for us. I think it was harder on my wife’s parents and my parents. As we moved to Ohio, I still had three living grandparents. My father’s father had passed away many years before. Both my parents were still working.
But us moving to Ohio was tough on everyone. In part because we were the outlier on one side. My wife’s brother lived in Birmingham, Alabama, so my in-laws were used to traveling. Ohio was East a bit of Alabama, but they never complained. My brother-in-law and his family moved to Tallahassee Florida later, and so did my wife’s parents. One of my last real memories of the farm was the first Christmas after our daughter was born. She arrived to quote Harry Chapin in the usual way. November 1992, by Christmas she was already sleeping through the night. We had moved to Maineville, and we wandered to the farm for Christmas Day. I think we were there a little more like five days. My grandmother (mother’s mother) had died earlier that year (1992). Christmas was a little subdued but still a celebration I will never forget.