One thing I always liked about Bob’s house is that they have family photos everywhere. Pictures of the kids, pictures of Bob and his wife, and pictures of people I don’t recognize all adorn the walls in his home.
Solid artwork made by the kids is here and there on shelves and hanging on walls. It’s mostly not the paper kind, but physical things, decorations made by the kids and put in places of prominence to decorate the rooms.
Our first apartment was a box of cinder blocks and a thin layer of sheetrock. We bought a box of nails, but never used them for anything. The one thing we did hang was the large mirror over the livingroom couch so that we could see the TV from the dining room table, and we ate there maybe twice while we were living there.
Of course, we didn’t have kids then, and we were much busier socially then than we are now.
When we moved into the old house, we kept the paintings that were on the walls. Nana painted most of them, so they held sentimental value in addition to being decorative. We added shelving and put mementos on them - Some carved wooden toys from the vendor at the 4th of July fair, a bronze relief given to me by a co-worker.
On a tall cabinet just inside the front door we started to place a few family photos. All of them were posed. Most came from the local Camera People franchise, where we headed when we needed a few cheap posed photos to distribute to relatives around Christmas time. There were one or two posed photos from Abby’s preschool. But we placed no framed photos of us living or having fun.
Back when my brother and I were kids, our parents hung photos from our little league sports teams on the wall in the family room. There were school photos in frames on shelves. My prom photo sat in a frame near the TV. I don’t recall any unposed photos on display, in spite of albums full of them tucked away on shelves and in boxes.
In our new house, we’ve barely begun to hang frames. Nana’s paintings are still around, and some fit well, but maybe I’m used to seeing them at the old place. I’m not sure where our formal photos have gone. The cabinet has moved, but the photos aren’t on it.
In my office I have three photos. One is of Abby from preschool. I have a baby photo of Abby from when we visited her aunt in Johnstown. I have a bad polaroid of Berta standing in the rain in a hat and jacket, completely unprepared for the picture. And these two informal photos are the only ones I know on display.
I wonder if I even have photos to put on display. I should have to make more candid times available to capture them on film.
