I Love..........Old Pictures

I love OLD PICTURES. I really don't even care if they are pictures of those I know. There's just something special about something that encapsulates a bit of time. If folks are having fun, or have a twinkle in their eye, all the better! It makes me want to go back in time and get to know them.

I get some of this from my mom. She used to go to a lot of auctions when I was growing up and often she would purchase old pictures, mostly because of their frames. Sometimes she would leave the pictures in them for a time. What interested me the most were the people from years ago who did not smile. Evidently picture taking was a serious business...or life was miserable. They scared me a bit. I swear their eyes would follow you around the room. The side of me that loves horror movies was intrigued. I wonder which of my friends and families are these folks of tomorrow.

I remember when I was in Paris and saw the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. I'd never been a big Mona Lisa fan. I never got the beauty of her so many others saw. Was I dying to see the actual painting? No, but determined only because I thought I should. So I head out in the Louvre to find her.  First of all, the Louvre is ridiculously large and all the things on my list to see during my marathon visit were miles apart. But I was determined. I found the Mona Lisa. The painting was much smaller than I expected. I had always thought it was a huge canvas. No.....around 8 1/2" x 11" or maybe a bit bigger....picture-sized. Crowds were around it, making it difficult to see at times. So I went up close when the crowds cleared, them stood back to look. I moved around a bit more. Wherever I went, her eyes followed me. In that, I was entranced. Possibly she really did have a secret she was trying to tell me. No, I didn't learn what it was. She should've been a bit quicker about revealing it. I was in Paris for about 36 hours and had a lot to see! But still....I loved her a bit after that visit.

I have boxes of pictures that I can't lay my hands on. I have learned not to lend them out....some that were precious to me were borrowed and never returned. One was stolen off of my refrigerator when I lived in Greensboro. It was my precious Polaroid of me and my friends Steve, Jack and Ed with Ramses, the real Carolina mascot (since replaced several generations.) It was a fun Carolina football day and it was a great picture of us all. I got to keep it.....well, because I had insisted on the picture...and I was the girl, so of course it should be mine! I had it for years and all three of these guys visited my house and saw the picture often. One stole it. Yes, I suspect I know which one. He had better be treasuring it to this day! If not, I wish him great torture. (Sometimes I may hold a grudge.)

Another favorite Polaroid was Adrienne, Charlie and me with the General Lee....the Dukes of Hazzard car....taken at the Signal Hill Mall on Christmas break when we were in college. Oh, and two little stranger boys, who had been crying because they wanted their picture taken with the car and their mom wouldn't pay the $3 or so it cost, were also in the picture with us. I ended up with that picture, too (I may be a bit grabbier than Adrienne and Charlie....and of course I didn't give it to the little boys!) It is around here someplace. One day I will find it and it will find its way onto Facebook. We were so young and cute that day!

While in some ways digital images make it easier to share and keep track of pictures, I personally seldom print them. I am not alone. What is this change going to do to history? I wonder. We take more pictures than ever, but I think many will be as though they were done by Snapchat. Here one minute, gone forever.

Last year my mom gave each of us kids a copy of a picture of her and my dad when they were first married. They got married at my dad's parent's house, with just my grandparents, the preacher, and his wife in attendance, and no one thought to take pictures that day. So the picture is not from then. My mom still has the dress and shoes she was married in, but has no pictures of her in it. She hates she doesn't have pictures of that special day, and I hate it, too. But anyway, this picture she gave us was one I had never seen before, probably taken during there first year of marriage. It has been enlarged and colorized perfectly. It's one of my favorites.

I used to take a lot more pictures than I do now, though I still take more than most. The sentimental side of me knows there will be a time when I wish I took more. Even now I will look back at old travel pictures or old family pictures or the pictures from my school yearbooks and they make me smile. The pictures always tell a story, even if they don't necessarily tell the true story. Maybe those unsmiling folks weren't as miserable as their pictures made them appear. We will never know. There's a mystery to a picture. One moment in time, true or false?

How about you? Why don't you smile for the camera and take a few pictures? Don't make them wonder if you're happy. Show future generations that you actually love your life. And if you don't....stop.....adjust.....more moments are coming to capture. Make them pleasant. Make others love old pictures....and not for the creepy factor.

Family Reunion

"Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you."  Deuteronomy 5:16

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We had our McKinney Family Reunion yesterday.  My dad was one of ten children and every single one of those children had children.  That means I have a lot of aunts and uncles and cousins.  There are actually a few McKinney cousins I couldn't easily identify. The McKinney family is big.  And I am sure to some a bit intimidating.  But to me, they have always been the essence of family.  I've always found love and comfort being part of them.

When my grandparents were alive and healthy, we all saw each other almost every week for Sunday dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Being one of the older grandchildren, I remember that time.  Most of the younger cousins never got to experience it or have no memories.  Grandma and Grandpa's house was on Island Ford Rd.... remember where Moore's Buds and Bows used to be, behind Ingles?  Prior to all of that, that was my grandparent's house (I still resent that shopping center being built there!)  The house looks smallish now, but it always seemed  really big to me back then.  On Sundays food would be everywhere in the kitchen and the dining room....everyone would sit...well, I'm not sure where we all sat.   The front porch was very popular.  We'd end up eating wherever we could find a space. But I don't remember that ever being an issue. No one went hungry....unless by choice!

I remember sitting on that porch listening to the conversations of the adults.  I remember making perfume out of the roses from Grandma's rose bushes.  (Or trying to.  I never understood why putting the buds in water never produced the same smell as the flowers themselves.)   I remember chasing lightening bugs....and June bugs....and climbing the apple tree in the back yard.  Not too high.... heights were not my friend even then.  I remember spending the night with Grandma, waking to bacon frying and a big breakfast (we were a cereal and toast family at home, so it was always a treat), and then for lunch going to Hickory for hot dogs at Fred Shell's.  I remember when my aunts Dana and Tena were in high school and watching them roll their hair with the biggest rollers you have ever seen.  Maybe it was juice cans.  Regardless, I couldn't wait until the day when I got to do the same.  Well, until my mom put sponge rollers in my hair for the first time.  I learned quickly rollers were not the thing for me!  I couldn't image bigger and harder rollers being used!

I remember sitting in the den where the piano was (you remember, that room where no one ever went!) and staring at the wall trying to figure out where the body of the deer was, whose head was on the living room wall on the other side.  My uncles told me it was back there.  I never could figure it out.  The wall just wasn't wide enough.....I should see part of it.  It never occurred to me that they were pulling my leg.

My  cousins, siblings and I would challenge each other to run in front of the TV screen and see if Grandpa yelled at us.  He did....most of the time.  That was our bonding time with Grandpa.  I remember giggling and giggling as I ran through that room.  Yeah, you would think after raising 10 kids he would have mellowed and could take that in stride....but the mellow only happened in the very last years of his life.  We drove him crazy.  And yes, that makes me smile even now.  But he married the perfect woman in my Grandma.  She was his polar opposite.  Nothing ever seemed to get to her.  I never remember impatience from her.  She would see us running, know exactly what we were up to, and quietly giggle herself.  I have no memories of ever seeing her angry.  She took everything in stride.  My mother will tell the story of coming over to this country to marry my dad (she was from a quiet family of three daughters in South Wales) and my uncles (Harold and Farrell, I believe it was) chasing each other around the house with knives.  Scared my mom to death.  My grandmother's response was to not even raise her voice, but to say "Boys, put the knives down."  And they did.  They knew the strength behind the quiet demeanor.

Your family is different than friends.  You choose your friends, God assigns your family.  While it is not always fair, while it may not always be good or healthy, while they may not always be the people you would choose, we're placed where we are for a reason.  For a purpose.  I am quite fortunate with the family to which I was assigned.  My siblings are some of my favorite people in the world.  I love and support them, and I know they love and support me.  My parents are great.....they have loved us, taught us, worried about us, and released us as adults.  I think they did their job well.  I look into their faces, and the faces of my aunts and my uncles, and I see a lot of who I am.  These are the adults who were assigned to love me, to stand by me.  To help make me a better person.  Some were there constantly, year in and out, some just for a season or two.  But I can tell you how every single one of them has shaped my life in some way.  My cousins....especially those close in age....add texture to the mix.  Some I feel particularly close to, some I don't know well.  Those adopted, the step cousins, the cousins by marriage....they are all part of the plan and an important part of who we are.  They are all part of what makes our family work.  The unit is functioning, whether it always functions well or not, whether it is functioning on all cylinders.  It always works best if all the units are engaged.  If they aren't, the machine doesn't work as well, but still can chug on and produce good stuff.

Most of the McKinney family is loud and opinionated and freely will give you advice.  I've always liked that.  At times I suspect those voiced opinions have led to hurt feelings and alienation by some members of the family. I never was privy to exactly what went on and still don't understand. It bothered me for a time, then I realized that time wasted worrying about such things is simply time wasted.  Those who feel wronged should state the offense to the perceived offender.  They should work it out.  In life in general, but especially in a family.  If they choose not to, they carry the issue around with them and it can be a heavy load.   The alienation stays and festers.  Often we let misdemeanors against each other become life sentence crimes.....why is that our choice?   All I know is that such choices take away precious time....keep us from what we should be in each other's lives....and people suffer from the alienation. 

Oh, how our family has grown!  Now we have the next generations.  I have nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, and my cousins have children and grandchildren.  Many don't carry the McKinney name, but they are part of the canvas.  They carry the connection, the McKinney history.  They have inherited good and bad.  I hope they see those of us who are adults grab hold of the good things that we have been handed, and replace the bad with better. I hope they never grab onto the "family isn't important" mentality.  Because done well, family makes up a group of people who are there to lift you up when you do well, and catch you when you fall.  They may then dropkick you into next week to teach you a lesson, but when that is done with love consider it a gift!  They didn't choose you....but yet they love you anyway.  Even when that love requires work.

It's a pretty cool thing to look around a room and know that while Paul and Lois McKinney are not on this earth, their lives still impact ours every single day.  We are their legacy.  I have inherited my grandpa's outspoken ways, but I believe I have also inherited my grandma's restraint and strength.  (On my maternal side, I think I have inherited my grandsha's spirit of contentment and my nana's critical spirit. But Nana taught me how I don't want that critical spirit to develop, so I am trying to learn to use it for good and not for making me and everybody else around me miserable!!!)  And their looks....a quick glance around the room at the McKinney reunion and you saw the same faces, with a bit of a mash-up here and and again!  You can't deny the common blood running in some of our veins.

I am sure that my grandparents never thought about how far the family tree would expand beyond them.  But it grows and grows and twists and turns and some branches fall off and others grow fuller and fuller.   I love that Paul and Lois McKinney are part of my life even today.  They are the cornerstone of my family.....and from them I received the gift of many other family members that I can share life with today.  They were responsible for giving life to my dad, and in that they made my life possible.  I'm grateful for family......and for union and reunion.  I appreciate those to whom it is important, those who make it a priority.  If we allow ourselves to be a part of that crazy unit called a family, we are rewarded with the richness of history..... and we fulfill some of our purpose on this earth.  If we don't, I think we miss out on some of why we were created.  And when we don't fulfill our purpose, we miss out on claiming some of the greatest joys of life.

Remembering What But Not When

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke

"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." - Ambrose Bierce 

"All the lessons of history in four sentences: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. The bee fertilizes the flower it robs. When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." - Charles A. Beard
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I have a mental block with dates.  I can't remember any of significance.  This is why I can't remember your birthday without Facebook, my sister Deryn (who seems to have a mental database), or you telling me yourself.  It is not personal if I forget yours....I can't always remember my own!  And Facebook and Deryn aren't 100% reliable about reminding me, so blame them.  Or blame yourself....you need to tell me!  I won't be insulted or think badly of you for wanting others to know...I think we all should celebrate that great day in history.

But anyway, I'm not talking birthdays here.....I am talking about this mental block with dates.  Well, not really the mental block but the fact that I love history, but cannot pinpoint when anything happened.  I do remember that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.....but that is about it.  It's pretty embarrassing.  Years and time just spin my head and I can't get a handle on them.  I can not only miss dates by decades, but probably centuries.  Yes, it is that bad.

People who love history will generally tell you that the dates are hugely significant.  For me, however, it's all about the stories.  As I think about it, I have had mostly great history teachers and almost every single one of them told me a story that got my attention.  Those stories shaped me, sometimes in ways that I only can detect in retrospect.

I think it began in 7th grade.  Frank Harris was my teacher (thanks for the name recall, friends!) and I remember very clearly the intrigue he created when he told the stories of Rasputin, Nicholas and Alexandra, and their son Alexi.  It was like a serial drama....OK, it really was a serial drama.  There was a royal love story, there was the "is he good or evil?" character Rasputin, there was the long awaited son that was born and found to have hemophilia, there were rumors, there was intrigue.  That was the first time I recall hearing about hemophilia.....and I remember hearing about the things that hemophiliacs endured back then (the leeches, the pain, the limitations on lifestyle.)  I never forgot it.

Many, many years later I was involved in an issue at work that dealt with the care of hemophiliacs.  I know those stories of the past colored my decision making.  In a good way.  Without that tug at my heart from long ago and the knowledge that I had gained from reading more about the disease because I found it fascinating, my passion could have fallen on the side of the most sound business decision.  While I could have made a strong argument for that sound business decision in this instance (and I did, so we could all consider all the angles), ultimately the right decision for my company was not the "best business decision" and not doing what everyone else was doing.  The right decision was to do everything we could to take care of sick people whose health care was better than it had been back in Alexi's day, but still a constant struggle.

Then there was 10th grade.  Joe Holpp was my history teacher.  I loved his subtle humor as he told us stories from the past.  I remember studying about the horrible things going on in the meat packing industry in the early 20th century (don't worry....I checked myself on that date), the subject of the book "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair.  He let me read parts of the book out loud.  Great stuff for a high schooler who loved grossing people out with the power of words.  The passages about the putrid meat....awesome!  But I got more out of it than that.  Not only did I learn a certain amount of skepticism for corporate America through our study, but it also fueled my opinions about social activism.  Why didn't people do something sooner?  Even if it meant they lost their jobs?  Even if it meant they lost everything?  Where was their compassion for their fellow man?  I understand why they didn't a bit more nowadays....but definitely not completely.  I hope I never do.  I hope I always see the big picture.  I hope I always care enough to speak up.

11th and 12 grade my history teacher was Pat Gainey.  He was the teacher who taught us that culture was a big part of our past.  Theda Bara, "The Vamp"....I know who she is because of him. Ty Cobb "The Georgia Peach"....again I learned of him from Mr. Gainey.  I can still see the picture of William Jennings Bryan walking down the street with the white carnation in his lapel (Mr. Gainey tested us not just on the notes, but gave us picture tests so we could identify these people in a lineup.)

While Mr. Gainey taught us about the politics and the wars, he always included the added dimensions of sports and entertainment.  I believe that those who entertain us tell others a lot about who we are as a people....and hate that today's students probably don't get history taught with quite that slant (though I personally could have done without the baseball history.)  

I love culture.  I am fascinated by subjects like what reality television tells us about our world or why we listen to the music we do or how our family life impacts our decision making.  These things are important parts of the history of a people.  If we discount them, we miss out on important dimensions of why things happen the way they do and what influences people to do the things they do.  Mr. Gainey was ahead of his time, I think.  Those things have now oozed into our world and it is difficult to separate them from the more "serious" matters of our history.  I don't know that we can anymore.  In this world of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", we find that life's all inter-connected.  And many people are recording the events from that perspective these days.

Then there was college....the amazing lectures of Dr. James Leutze actually got me to sign up for not just one semester of military history, but two.  Dr. Leutze was one of the most popular professors on campus, and it was for good reason.  He made you care.  He didn't give out dry facts about wars, he didn't paint everything with the colors of the American flag....he told stories of flawed generals and bungled strategy and ulterior motives and fluke victories.  He suggested possible conspiracy theories.  He taught us how things like terrain mattered when you were studying a war.  He taught us how to think strategically, and to weigh all of the elements before you make a decision.  And then showed us why it mattered....using the triumphs and tragedies of war. Great stuff to learn at that time in my life....and I think I have used that training ever since.  On my own personal battlefields.

I can identify very few dates back from history, but I do remember the stories.  I am sure some of what I have been taught is wrong, much of what I remember is flawed, and much of what is passed down from generation to generation is biased.  Still, if these stories make us think, if they make us consider options, if they teach us to consider alternate strategies for the problems of our day, they are of much value. 

As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

While knowing a date here and there may add dimension to the history I know, I kind of like the purity of just knowing the stories.  When I apply what I have learned from history to my life, the date changes anyway, and these stories become just another day under the sun.


(Incidentally,  I haven't met my husband because of my great knowledge of baseball history, as Mr. Gainey said I would after my impassioned complaint about having to study it.  While I had it down cold then, my remembrance of that baseball history unit is a bit dim....the batting averages I memorized are now gone by the wayside.  Maybe I should see if I still have my notes.)