Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for June 13, 2023

Slice from my life. We’ve all been there, I’m sure. The question I have is it ever not the wife who broaches the subject?

My brother passed away last year. He spent from mid-December in the hospital or hospice. He and his wife spent a lot of time reliving their many travels.

Arlo’s collection of playboy bunnies is so old he refers to them as dust bunnies.

Arlo is just sitting there collecting dust.

With digital photos now, whenever we make a big trip, we create a hard back photo book to remember it by.

I need to haul out my old photo albums and try to scan the photos onto my laptop.

Digitize your old photos, easy and there they are. Your children may not be interested now, but the chances are good that they will be. Random un-labeled photos will end up in the dust bin of history. Found a box in the attic and a lot sadly ended in the bin. But what a treasure to find carefully signed great greats nicely posed from the 1800’s. Add in a bit of who’s who or a reminiscence. Fun project. The actual prints and negatives went to the local historical society- main street 1889, great grands model T in front of their home, etc.Travel photos can end up on line, there was a request out for photos of Bagan after the earthquake or Palmyra – history cares.

My wife took tons of pictures and videos. The kids and her, almost none of me.

My wife has a collection of pictures in a plastic tote that is too heavy for me to lift; I can barely scoot it on the garage floor. I don’t keep any pictures… I never understood the attraction.

Reviewing old photo albums accentuates the aging process!

They don’t seem to have much to do. Which is good, I guess.

What? Not waste another evening watching mindless TV. Surely you jest.

My aunt collected all the family pictures after my parents passed on and copied then onto CDs. Everyone in the family got one. That might be a good idea, but maybe you could save the original pictures in a lock box somewhere.

We got a document scanner that also works well for photos. Stored all the image files on hard disk. So much easier that looking at a big album, and they won’t fade.

They have their place possibly, but the last person who has an interest in them should destroy them before that person dies, as the next recipient will unceremoniously throw them in a garbage can…..

Janis can look at the scrapbooks anytime she wants. She does not have to force Arlo to participate. He is already doing what he wants to do.

Digitize them.

Our photos since digital existed have been done with digital camera or cell phone. Perhaps some of the older camera photos on paper will continue in the families – but probably not and chances are the digital photos and media will be tossed out when we are gone.

Few of our photos are of family members – they are travel photos of places that meant something to us. When Kmart first opened here we were all excited to bring the roll of film to them to have it developed as we had heard ads for same while traveling. They lost the film. They asked us for a description of the photos – the people in them, etc. "Well, um, some of them have my husband serving as a judge in a 1770s courthouse,but he is in modern clothing… Much of our photos are of items in various museums which interested us – in addition to things such as 1700s household items and clothing there are a lot of photos of needlework from various periods and various museums – he used to take the photos of same for me, now I shoot with my phone and then forget about them.

I can just imagine his sister and my sisters and their families going through it and nothing will be of value to them and all will be tossed – and I am not just talking about the photos.