Old Photographs

 One of the projects that I worked on before leaving Ohio was scanning old photographs onto the computer. I was busy cropping and adjusting for the fading color and should, if I am serious, store them on an external hard drive for safekeeping.

Old photographs have always fascinated me and as I have gotten older they pull on my imagination and memory even more. The memories for some events are so worn and faded with only some wispy strands of feeling flicking across. But for many pictures the smiles hold attention. The smiles say look at me. I am here in this moment of time. Some of the smiles hold promise that the present was good. Are some of them the same as those in the present day  - just social habit of doing what is expected?

The early 1950's at my grandfather's farm.

 Research has been published that demonstrates that “smiling” releases endorphins in the brain and therefore can positively effect how we feel. The researchers also swear that it take fewer muscles to smile than to frown. 

My mother came to visit for the first time in years right after I graduated from college, 1968.

My sister and I in Easter dresses that were terribly itchy.

My older sister about 1946

A philosophy professor back when I was in college made a statement that we own our faces after forty. Sure there are genetics but where do you want all your lines.  I started noticing those faces long before I noticed any lines in mine. I noticed that the smile lines do look best.

By the missing teeth it would have to be 1st or 2nd grade. The famous missing teeth years for all.

 Does the world help us smile or do we figure out how to smile so that we can make it through the world?   Besides the some of the folks in the grocery store just don’t know what to do when a stranger just smiles at them because the world needs as much light as possible sometimes.