These memories came flooding back with this weeks Sepia Saturday prompt.
My tale of woe goes all the way back to 1956, Friday, November 9th to be exact.
(But who's counting.)
Yea, I was around back then. Had been for a little over 13 months.
Not only did my family make the headlines, we (they) had a rather large photo placed on the front page under that headline. (This one to the left without me in it.)
But I am no where to be seen.
I have always been proud of the fact that we came ‘over here’ from ‘over there’ ( a lady in a grocery store once asked my dad if we had driven all the way ‘here’ from ‘over there’).
I like having that connection to a far away place, “We’re from over there.”
As much as I can, I celebrate my ‘over there’ heritage. (At least as much as one can without having to relive that famous revolution of the late 1700’s with my neighbors.)
You know the kind of thing; president of the local Sherlock Holmes club, the Stars and Strips and the Union Jack stickers on my trucks bumper. A “Brown Betty” on my desk at work (you would be surprised how many pens you can get in a “Brown Betty”). I even named two of my dogs after that earlier dynamic duo, Sherlock and Watson. Teaching my daughter to eat beans on toast and kippers. That sort of thing.
Do you think I have an unhealthy need to prove that “yes, I too was born ‘over there’”?
Now I realize my brother is a couple of years older than me, and that that fact alone allows for more time to have had more pictures taken of him ‘over there’ before we came ‘over here’.
But it seems I have been left with this need to prove that I existed before ‘over here’, you know, 'over there'.
There are far fewer photos of me ‘over there’. Lots of my brother ( and did I mention, he does not have this need to prove he was ‘over there’ before we were ‘over here’). He hardly ever even brings up ‘over there’.
There are lots of pictures of him with uncles and aunts, at the sea side, in prams.
On grandmas knee.
Any photos of me seem a little blurred in comparison. Almost like an after thought; “Oh yea! Let’s get one of ‘what’s his name’”.
We came over on the Queen Elizabeth in Nov. of 1956. I was always told I was the only one that didn’t get sea sick. Apparently the sea can be kinda rough in November. So maybe during my best photographic moments everyone else was too sick to hold and use a camera.
(Dad, however, never did mention missing many meals while mom was in the cabin sick with us kids.)
And there are several pictures of my brother on that great ship. Standing on deck. Seated with a life ring that says ‘Queen Elizabeth’ around his neck. One of dad holding him up as we passed that great lady in New York harbor.
But only one, yes one, of me. “Oh yea! Lets get one with ‘What’s his name’”. (Did I mention I hold onto that trunk my brother is sitting in to prove I was ‘over there’ also.)
So this weeks Sepia Saturday prompt again brought this sad longing in my life once more to the surface.
“Did I exist ‘over there’ before we had ‘over here’?
Some where buried within that now browned newspaper article I am indeed mentioned.
I comfort myself thinking that mom always said, and it says so in the newspaper, that we were only going (coming over) for a short time, “12 months, maybe three years.” So maybe they thought we would be back in plenty of time to take more pictures of me, while I was still young, ‘over there’ after we got back from ‘over here’.
Maybe I had fallen asleep while the photographer took so long to set up the shot.
Maybe I had fallen down inside the trunk and the line for other people to have pictures taken was just too long to reset the shot.
As it turned out I had to wait 15 years to have another picture taken of me ‘over there’.
But I hold no grudge.
