The Way Things Were Meets How They Are

My friend Kristen’s post about the best sing along songs of all time is partially to blame for what you are about to read.

It would be more accurate to say I had intended to spend some time organizing digital pictures so that I could make sure I have backed up precious memories and ended up doing something else.

But we won’t talk about anything that doesn’t make me appear to be the finest example of a human being because we wouldn’t want to destroy the Internet by presenting ourselves to the world as we are and not as we want everyone to see us.

So ignore any signs of procrastination on my part and read this post and be inspired, moved and amazed.

Or don’t, I won’t be hurt.

Anyway listening to the best sing along songs reminded me about how many of those were/are rooted in parts of my past and how my kids would refer to some of them as my old music.

The Way Things Were Meets How They Are

That photo above is supposed to help you focus on the three sets of hands belonging to the men in the photo just below.

Three generations of Wilner men but only one of us has a hairline worth a damn and let me tell you that son of mine grows hair at a ridiculous rate.

But I am a good son and father so I blame my current state upon children and parents. Hell I blame lack of an empire to run upon the guy on the left.

Don’t ask dad about it because he’ll blame my grandfather for not being rich and if grandpa were around he’d blame it on my great-grandfather.

Sounds like an accountability issue to me, so when my son asks me why we are not rich I am going to tell him I wanted to him to become rich with experiences and benefit from labor. 🙂

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Go back to the shot of our hands for a moment and you might be able to see how similar they are.  Fun fact, we all have the same feet too.

Aren’t you impressed.

What strikes me about our hands is I remember clearly when my father’s hands were the biggest in the world as well as when I realized mine were the same size as his.

I remember just as clearly when my son was born and how I confirmed he had ten fingers and ten toes. Tiny little hand that I could see were like mine even then.

Except those tiny hands aren’t so tiny any more and if you look at the pictures in this post it is clear those hands are gaining on the bigger ones they are close too.

Hell, since that picture is more than a year old I can guarantee that the kid is taller than he was and his hands are bigger.

Today he complained about some mystery aches in his legs and if said aches follow historical precedent it means he’s growing.

Sometimes I forget how fast time moves and I think about this endless stream when I what see now are far more signs of the teenager and hints of the man to come than the boy and baby he once was.

And let’s not even discuss pop culture references that he doesn’t appreciate, understand or catch. If I told him you can’t buy Donald Trump’s toupee for $5 billion he would ask me who Trump is.

Nor will I mention how he enjoyed watching Goldfinger with me but had little appreciation for the technology in it and how once it seemed quite advanced.

Digital Photo Albums Meet The Past

One of the things that happens when dig through boxes in your garage you discover older photo albums and you discover that the move from film to digital photography happened more recently than you realize.

Because as you go through the boxes you find lots of photos of you first born that extend into his entry into preschool.

Many of those shots ended up in traditional photo albums and it was only later that you stopped printing out every shot you took and started creating digital file folders that were filled with hundreds of  photos.

Some of those photos were printed out. Some were used in collages and turned into photo books but organizing them is different now from how it once was.

In the good old days when we used film we had no idea what the shots would look like until we printed them and discovered that Aunt Matilda had closed her eyes and little Jimmy was making a face.

It was always a pleasure to pay $88 for developing the family vacation shots to see things like that.

Now you get almost instant feedback and if it doesn’t look right you take the shot again.

But modern technology still hasn’t answered the question of how to balance trying to capture a moment through a lens versus experiencing it yourself.

It is why I sometimes leave my phone in my pocket and just watch what is going on around me.

The reasons why the old person music makes me smile is often because there are memories of moments tied up in it.

Sometimes I’ll miss capturing that moment and I’ll have to accept that maybe my memory doesn’t always measure up with how things really were just as how it doesn’t always fit with how things are.