The Joy of Photos

I'm someone who loves photos! I love taking, organizing, scrapping, scrutinizing and tagging them! (More about this photo in a minute.)

As you know I've been in my *happy zone* for much of this year delving into photos. It started with recent photos, 2004 forward, but then a conversation with Ann got me into the old photos. I remembered that I have photos of my parents when they were courting and then envelopes, somewhat organized, of my birth through the mid 1970s.

When I was about 10 years-old I started keeping a funny little 12" x 8" landscape photo album... green, of course, with the classic black pages and black corner holders! The funniest part about this album is that I started by mounting my photos, randomly, on only one of the facing pages. Then at some point I realized that I would run out of room that way- so I started filling in the blank pages with out-of-chronological-sequence photos! (And now it drives my OCD-ness wild!) Like I said, this one is totally random but I love it and don't want to change it... not even the Buddi-chewed corner.

I started thinking how nice it would be to have a more ordered approach with all of those photos that have lived in envelopes for decades (YES! decades). I tried to find an album similar to my old green one, but didn't have very good luck. The best I could find was a spiral-bound all black album on Amazon that with shipping (sorry, no free shipping from this vendor) would be around $25. I didn't love it enough to buy it without looking at Hobby Lobby first. Boy did I hit the day!! Scrapbooks were 50% off.  I liked the looks of this 12 x 12 specimen (I got two more as well. Hey! Half off!)  I also bought some black paper, more page protectors and opted against the corner holders. I'd much rather use my tape runner. And, AND a couple of white Gelly-Roll pens. I love the look of white ink on black paper.

To supplement the photos I already had in envelopes I took a week-long side-trip tagging and organizing many of the 3000+ photos Cindy scanned about 10 years ago. (bless you Cindy!)   I've been printing some of them so I can include them in my new heritage album.

As soon as this one came out of the printer I thought... sure wish this had the deckle edge! HA! I just happened to have some deckle-edged scissors! Voila! Almost-heritage photos!

JAKE AND ELSIE circa 1940

** Now for the story on the lead photo!

This was taken in March 1960 at Granddad's house in Oakland CA. My mom labeled this-

*THE MUNCE CLAN*

STANDING BACK ROW- BILL MUNCE, PATRICIA MUNCE, FRED MUNCE, SUE CARAWAY, ANN CARAWAY, PAT MUNCE
SEATED FRONT ROW- ELSIE MUNCE CARAWAY, ERMA MUNCE, KATHY MUNCE, JOANIE CARAWAY, JOHNNY MUNCE, DICK MUNCE,  JACK and JANE MUNCE.

This photo represents all of Bill Munce's posterity: 3 children and 7 grandchildren. With him is the only Gramma I ever knew, Erma... what a marvelous grandma (my mother's mother died in 1927)! I think she loved us as much as we loved her because even after Granddad died in December 1961 we still visited her frequently in her cute little house.

Now this is what I love about photos... you may only see the people in the photo.  I see some of Granddad's roses on the left, gingerbread on the porch, a climbing vine on the right side.  And then, far right, I see part of our old Ford aqua and white station wagon with 3 rows of seats so Mom could separate us girls if necessary!  I also see the rest of Granddad's rose garden that filled his front yard.  I smell the lemon tree that grew along the driveway down by the garage.  I smell the damp, ocean-fresh air and the faint aroma of Easter ham.  I feel the love of this family.  I hear the banter from Uncle Swabby-Fred... he was my mom's *baby* as she raised him when their mother died shortly after his birth.

And as an aside... my memory is just like a mental photo album made up from Technicolor photos, surround sound and vivid smells... maybe that is why I love physical photos so much.