I’ve been going through old photos for a project and it’s been fun. More than simple nostalgia, I’ve been experiencing wonder while studying the photos of yore. It’s fairly amazing to think about the changes that have occurred in my lifetime alone. Technologically, politically, environmentally – it’s fascinating.

 

When I was a wee lass, for some reason it occurred to me to think about the changes my great-grandmother had lived to see. Granny Vera was one of the loves of my life, so I was enamored with everything about her. Imagining her history was one such thing. For example, when she came into the world, her family didn’t yet own an automobile, though they did acquire one when she was still a girl – they needed it to run moonshine. As a child, Granny Vera’s family used an ice box to keep food from perishing. Not an electric ice box, mind you, but a great big box that held a hunk of ice. That was it. She witnessed the advent and installation of electric lights, indoor plumbing, party-line telephones, automatic washing machines, talking movies, television and lord knows what else.

 

All the things Granny Vera saw birthed are commonplace for me. But I can point to – in my own lifetime – the rise of personal computers, the interwebs, cell phones, space travel, digital cameras and lord knows what else, too. And, like Granny Vera, I live with these things, seldom thinking of having been without.

 

But once in a while, like when looking through old photos and documents, I am reminded of the olden days. How we used film cameras and how we sent letters. How the only way we received world news was on the 6 o’clock national broadcast. Or from an actual newspaper. And during those recollections, I feel close to Granny Vera.

 

I also feel close to her when I sit outside in the shade on a hot day, cooling myself with a hand-held paper fan I picked up somewhere along the way, watching the occasional car drive past and listening to the sounds of summer. At those moments, I can almost see Granny Vera sitting beside me. Quietly taking it all in, having already witnessed the changing of the world. Maybe it’s true what they say. Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same.

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