I try not to ask for help; but I just can’t decide on my last image this week. If it were yout’s, would you go for the ‘poignant’ shot of family memorabilia, or the ‘gee, I’m drunk; I’d better stop now’ shot?
http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2011/jun/08/scanner05sml.jpg
http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2011/jun/08/scanner06sml.jpg
The story behind the family mem. stuff is that it’s all that remains, excepting a burnt-edged stack of letters (one of which is shown) from a house fire my parents suffered about 5 years ago. I sifted with a paint brush and sieve and small shovel to get what few items are in the image. Point to be driven home is ‘have you a back-up of your documents in a separate location? Because what was lost far exceeded what remains.
All the family photos dating to the dawn of American photography (they were well-to-do back then) were lost in the fire; it was a crazy random happenstance that I’d been there a few weeks before and scanned a good many images for use in my ‘Family Tree Maker’ program project that we have any historical documents left at all. But the quality certainly isn’t what could be achieved today. Very sad.
//nevermind. Conveyance of the importance of back-ups supersedes votes this week.
////side note: Beyond the garage where the family memorabilia was kept, the fire also took out the kitchen. The family cookbooks and recipes and such were ‘toasted’, but not beyond salvageable. However, my mother is uber-sensitive to odors, and especially the smell of fire (since then); I kept what I’d saved, charred may it have been, and mom would occasionally call and I’d dig up an old recipe.
I managed to find copies of the 1961(3?) Fannie Farmer cookbook, which I presented to her for her birthday in August the following year (and got a copy for myself, as well.) She cried. She thought I’d had her tattered, in-5-pieces cookbook restored. In reality I’d paid $2 bucks for a barely-used replacement (and $3 for the copy for me.)
There was a set of holiday cookie recipes, “A World of Cookies”, that I grew up with, that she’d gotten from a bag of Gold Medal flour in the early 70’s; it became a family tradition to make them each year during the holidays. I didn’t find them, but a lot of the pantry was totally burnt, so in September that year I wrote to General Mills, detailing the recipes, even some of the cookie names (Norwegian wreaths, English toffee, etc), and asked if they per chance, had them somewhere. I thought it would make a nice Christmas gift.
Christmas came and went.
In February the following year, out of the blue and at my workplace, a co-worker told me she had a person calling me from General Mills. Not even remembering and very confused, I took the call, and the lady profusely apologized for taking so long, but asked me if Finnish Almond Brittle and Brazilian Coffee Bites might have been some of the other recipes, and after some discussion, I knew she’d found what I had been looking for.
She emailed me the recipes, and offered to send along a copy of the reprinted original Betty Crocker cookbook to give to my mother to renew a collection of family recipes. No charge.
I emailed mom the same day. Subject: “Merry Christmas, give or take a couple months.”
Mom called back shortly after, and said “Russ, you’re not giving gifts, you’re giving memories.”
To this day it’s the highest compliment I’ve ever received.
4 months later, while looking for another recipe, I found the original, tucked away, taped-in-the-middle, within one of the burnt “Encyclopedia of Recipes” cookbooks. If anyone’s interested, I’m scanning it now.
