Painfully poignant

Happy, sad; public, private. Two photographs of my mother kept popping up in my mind, as I considered whether to enter the upcoming miniatures competition at the Florence Museum. I'm sure daddy took both of them, and they look sort of contemporary to each other.

One shows mama sitting on a street curb in front of a Coca Cola sign, which itself is in front of an old truck. In this one mama is smiling. From the little bit you can see of the building to the left, it was probably a gas station. What she was doing there, whose truck it was, why the truck door was standing open - who knows.

The other photo shows her sitting at her bedroom dresser, her reflection showing in the mirror. In this one she is not smiling. It may have been a Saturday morning, since she isn't wearing more dressy type clothes for her work in an office, and she doesn't have her makeup or earrings on.

I sort of remember the apartment we were living in where that one was taken. I may be completely wrong about the location, but I think it's the apartment house on Warley Street, upstairs. The house is still there but the staircase has been moved - it used to run sideways, angled from top left to bottom right across the front of the house, now it runs straight down from the center of the second floor landing.

So what does this have to do with Tim? In order to find those photos, I had to go through a large pasteboard box full of other boxes, and pictures of Tim and his family were on top. I nearly stopped then and there, the emotions attached to those images were still so raw. But I didn't, I gritted my teeth, lifted all the "wrong" boxes out, finally found the "right" box - on the bottom, of course - and tried to re-focus.

Tim would approve of my wanting to do something special with mama's pictures, I think. Daddy would probably approve, too. I'm not too sure mama would, at least not the sad one. She probably didn't want daddy to take that one considering she doesn't have her "face on." (That is, she hasn't put her makeup on for the day yet.)

I'm going to work a little with these photos this weekend. I need to check if they would be admissible to the Museum show since I myself didn't shoot them, but whether they are or not I think I'll print and frame these two. I can certainly sympathize / empathize with the way mama was feeling in each.

Sparse reunion

I went to the Tanner reunion, stopping at Bo Jangles for a box of chicken on the way. When I got there, I realized that the building doesn't actually say American Legion anywhere (on the outside), just the name of a person and "Post" - but it was in the right place, and it turned out to be the right building.

Only 23 people showed up, and three of those were small children belonging to Tod Gardner. So many were absent that most of the tables weren't really necessary at all. And there was way too much food - of the 20-piece chicken box I took, only 4 or 5 pieces were eaten. I put what was left in the freezer when I got home.

Neither Dale or Bryan were there. Angie wasn't there. All four of Ruth E's sons were there, but only one brought his wife, and that was Ed - his wife Gertrude hasn't been to a reunion in a long time, but she made a special effort to attend, although she uses a wheelchair these days. Frances Tisdale didn't attend and I missed her. None of the Lane family were there.

Morgan Ruppe and his son John decided at the last minute to come, after a friend (Louise) offered to drive them. Morgan is thin and much grayer than the last time I saw him, and he seems a bit frail. His memory isn't as sharp either, and Louise said it's because of his heart attacks. That happened to Theron and to Tim after they had heart attacks, too - some short-term memory seemed to be affected. It was good to see Morgan, though, and I'm glad he made the effort.

Estelle, Denise and David, and Carolyn were there. Johnny Tanner was there and he had brought his fiddle - no piano for me to play.

Johnny did pretty good, even though he's still learning to play - He played for us to sing Faith of Our Fathers. Mae brought a devotion about her father's faith, which was very interesting. He was known to be able to stop bleeding, and to heal thrush. People would come from all around the area for him to pray for them. Remarkable.

The same officers were elected and the place will be the same next year. There's no playground for kids which is a drawback, but the place was clean and neat and big enough, considering. No piano, no microwave, but the air conditioner worked fine.

Maybe next year more people will be there. I didn't take pictures this year, which I might regret later on, but I enjoyed sitting with Ruth E's family and talking to them a bit. All in all, I'm glad I went.