Bits of My Family

My oldest daughter came home from Ohio/Tennessee for a visit last week. I haven't seen her since she moved about three years ago. We talk on the phone often, but it just isn't the same.

Sunday was her last day here, so we decided on a photo op. This picture has the majority of my crumb crunchers displayed. Don't miss the top tree hugger! We missed my son and a few of the grandchildren, but I'm grateful for what I can get.




The cemetery is a great place to take pictures on a Sunday afternoon. There is a clump of umbrella trees in the center of the old part that is right out of a fairy book. Hmmmm. Elves or tree frogs?



This was a fun thing to do with Daughter A and her kids. I like the vintage look and it's easy to do. This shot will bring back memories for a long time to come. We can look back on the warm, fuzzy memory of getting busted by the cops taking pictures in the cemetery. Honest! We were snapping and posing and laughing at Grandson #1 getting leeches on his bare feet, when a cop car drove through. Since I know the cops from work, I waved. The car stopped, and the officer strolled across the grass toward us. He said a neighbor called to report a group of teenagers horsing around taking pictures in the cemetery and being generally rowdy. I laughed. Not everyone saw the humor, but it turned out all right. Officer Jim told us to go ahead and take all the pictures we wanted and to have a good time.



This is one of my big little girls. She's growing faster than her parents would like, as children do. She's a good girl, and we had fun taking pictures of her with her mom and brother. She had fun with her cousins too. This was a rare, quiet moment when her light shown through.



These are my four bigguns. They loved the "punk" wall. They practiced looking tough for these pictures.

It is an adventure being the oldest generation. I look at these kids and I think, holy cow I'm my aunts Leona/Fern!

When I was the age that these kids are now, way back in the 60s, I was almost a hippy. Leona and Fern were my grandmother's sisters and we saw quite a lot of them. Leona worked in dress stores or JC Penney's uptown and Fern was a typical upper middle class housefrau, involved in clubs and charities. They didn't leave the house unless they were fully dressed with heels, hose, hair done, accessories, and the whole deal. I remember when they wore gloves and hats. When they saw sisters and me uptown in our cut-offs and with bare feet, they would cuss us out and try to send us home. If they saw these kids, they would probably wonder what the world was coming to all over again.



But look at this kid. His blue hair looks more like grey now, he's wearing his stylin' hoodie even though it's 98 degrees outside, and he looks like the tough guy he isn't. This is the best kid in the world. He's almost 16 and is just plain a good kid. I'm as proud of him as if I'd trained him myself. I didn't raise him, but I taught his mom to be a terror!



The child was always the runt in whatever group he was in. We were afraid he would wear child size shoes to college. Then one day he grew. I take that back -- he didn't grow, he exploded. He outgrew clothes monthly. He went through shoe sizes like water. He grew and grew and grew. Now he is officially a galoot. He put his sister in the air without a pause, and held her there. OK, she's only 80 pounds soaking wet, but still. He's very strong, and she's very brave.



I'm the same age my parents used to be. Let me rephrase that. I'm the age now that my mother was, and my dad would have been if he'd been alive, when I was 25 years old. That was 1977, so do the math.

The people in these pictures are most of my children and theirs. Not all, but most. Do you suppose I'll live to see their children? Who knows? I wouldn't mind it. We'll be great-grandparents in a few months and I'm feeling some age. Then I think I agree with sister. She's says we're in the old age of youth and the youth of old age. I've got seven years on her, so I'm in an older youth of old age than she.

Did you ever wonder what your legacy to the world will be? Here's mine.