The magic of the Photo Both.......

I must admit, it was a totally wonderful weekend. The weather has been perfect since last Friday here at the beach - highs 75 to 80ish, sunny, blue skies and low humidity.
The weekend consisted of great friends, great food, great drink, great laughs - all the key ingredients to a successful life. Today will, hopefully, be a studio day today as I have much to do.
But first, here's something fun from the weekend - ye old photostrip-

That's myself and my friend Miguel (who was visiting) taken on the boardwalk of Rehoboth Beach in one of those wonderful old B/W photoboths. I love those things, and I must admit, their existence has been a factor in my memory banks since I was a young child....

Here's a strip of my brother David and I circa 1970. I'm on the right.
We had countless numbers of these strips growing up and I love each and every one of them...

This would be myself and some friends from High School - Beth, Judy and Richard. This is circa 1982 - or gulp...23 years ago....I have no idea what became of Beth. Richard and I still send each other emails on occasion and I haven't heard from Judy in years - though I know she's out there. She and I were very close in High School and she was a brilliant artist back then. Judy - if you read this one day, drop me an email....

I think that I'm about 22ish in this one which would be around 1987 or so. This would be around the same time that I met my dear friend Mandy who I reference in this blog frequently and who's blog you can read by clicking on the "Mad, Mad Day" link under Blogs O' Plenty.

That's my nutty friend Mark Lowry popping his head in. While it looks like something illicit is occurring in the last shot, I'm actually trying to stop Mark from smashing his head through the curtain again ( I did this successfully in the second frame). I think there was some bodily pain involved in this. For some reason, the first frame of this strip is missing......
Mark and I are still very close. He's married now with a lovely wife and 8,000 kids and he is, appropriately, a Pediatrician.

I think my favorite strip image that I have is one of my parents taken while they were still engaged to be married....

I love this photo and I had it professionally enlarged and keep it in a vintage frame. It's probably from anywhere between 1959 and 1961. I love their loving expressions here. So full of youth, so in love and so ready to take on whatever my lie ahead of them - which happened to be a hell of a lot.

By 2001, they were both gone - they passed much too young in my book. This is the photo that I lit two little candles by after I had learned of my Father's death. My father was devestated by my mother's death at the age of 52 and he never really got over it. He died 12 years later. My sister (who was with my father when he passed) told me recently that right before he died, he looked upwards with a wonderful expression on his face as if he was witnessing something beautiful. I like to think that it was my mother coming back to him and that she may have looked like this.