A Picture's Worth...

at least a 1000 words!

I've been obsessed with photos since the first of the year. Not only taking them, which I've done a lot of, but every other facet you can think of! I've organized, scrapped, searched for, and poured over my photos. (How many places can I have photos? That's what I want to know!)

I found this photo of my mom, Elsie, again. I've found it before because it's mounted on cardstock... and I remember being so pleased to locate it! I'm quite sure that I scanned it then and sent it to family... but who knows?  I haven't come across that digital file.

ANY-way, these are some of the thousand words that this photo evokes from me...

It is August 1961 (it is the only month in 1961 that ends with the 31st on a Thursday). Elsie is 48. Her *baby* (me) will turn 9 this month. Her next oldest daughter is going to be a Senior in high school and her eldest daughter will be off to her second year at BYU. Elsie is raising her three girls, basically on her own, in tiny Greenville, CA. She is such a dedicated mother.

She works for the US Forest Service in Quincy, CA; a 22 mile drive on curvy, narrow mountain roads. Even though she does the very same work as a man in the office her pay-grade is two steps lower than his! She can use that antiquated 10-key with the best of them and can type 100 WPM on an old manual typewriter! Elsie is well liked by her co-workers and frequently talks to me about them. We even go to visit them at their homes and she trades books back and forth with them.

Reading is one of Elsie's passions. She loves nothing better than to curl up with a good book. She also reads to me frequently! My favorite is a story about a boy who turns into a cat. I love his adventures and can still recall in detail his encounter with a rat. I wish I knew the name of that book.

Elsie has a ready smile and a good sense of humor. You can see that she is caught off guard and is saying, "You!" 

She has beautiful black hair that waves just-so up from her forehead... she has no idea what a pretty lady she is. And you know what? Half-way through the day she will pull off one or both of her clip-on earrings and rub the feeling back into her earlobes before replacing them.

And tonight... now that I've scanned (again) and journaled about this photo of my Mommy... THIS time I've saved it digitally in the 1960-1964 folder- right where it should be... and the paper copy? That has gone into my carefully organized envelope (of the same name) waiting for its turn to be put into little-Joanie's NEW black-paged-album similar to the old one that lives, battered by years, on my bookshelf.

(FYI... that was only 307 words...)