Life and Pictures

It's Christmas eve, 1970. I'm 12 years old and as far as I'm concerned. everything is perfect.  My grandparents are in town from South Carolina and I love nothing better than spending time with my grandfather.  Just sitting at the table watching him drink coffee so hot that a normal human being couldn't even hold the cup, much less drink and swallow the scalding black liquid.  As he drank and told stories, he would roll a cigarette.  Expertly pulling a paper from a small pack and then holding it and sprinkling Paladin Black Cherry pipe tobacco until it was just right.  Next he rolled it and put it to his lips and flicked open the silver Zippo lighter.  The smell of lighter fluid followed by the sweet smell of the black cherry tobacco still takes me back to those days and him.  He would inevitably spit a few specks of tobacco from his lips after the first puff.  All his clothes had tiny holes burned in them from the red hot tobacco embers that would cascade from the end of the cigarette whenever he moved, or talked, or just waited too long before releasing them into the ashtray.  

 


Sometimes he smoked the same tobacco in a pipe and the smell was always intoxicating, and unmistakeably his.  In 12 or so years he would be dead.  An inevitable victim of one of his many heart attacks, but for now, I thought he was a superman. 











Tomorrow is Christmas and it will be crazy in the house.  It's already pretty hectic, even this early in the morning, my mother and grandmother are in the kitchen peeling oranges for ambrosia and making cornbread for dressing.  

Several gallons of sweet tea sit cooling on the counter and there is a giant turkey in the sink.  Heaven forbid I should have the idea to wander into the kitchen to see what is going on.  My grandmother would swiftly escort me right back out saying something like "The kitchen is no place for children" and never even put down the bowl of potatoes she was peeling.

Tomorrow my other Grandfather and about a dozen aunts and uncles will be here for lunch.  All the cousins will pair up and jockey for position at one of the many card tables.  There will, without a doubt, be many spilled drinks, dropped food, hurt feelings, stories told and memories made.  

And a couple of pictures will be taken. Only a couple though because film is expensive and processing a roll costs at least as much as the film itself.  So the "Kodak" as my Grandfather called it, will come out and a couple of awkwardly posed family shots will be snapped off.  Assuming the flashbulb works and some crazy kid doesn't ruin it, the pictures will be developed and lovingly placed in an album, or stashed in a box or drawer.  





 

Don't you wish now that we had taken more pictures?  What would you give to have a photographic record of that special day, or that special person? 

This year, take lots of pictures and make lots of memories.  Save the moments, you never know, someday your grandchildren may thank you.

E-mail with questions, comments, or random thoughts:

        keith@keithlewisphoto.com

 

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