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Sunday, March 14, 2010

I: The Way My Story Goes

I love photographs. Anyone who was my friend in high school knows that as soon as I got my first digital camera, I started taking approx. 3 billion pictures a day. Unfortunately, someone broke my camera and wouldn't admit it, and I never got a new one. (Which is probably good, as it reduced the number of terrible pictures existing in the world by about 3 billion a day...)

So anyway, even more than taking photographs of myself my friends, I love looking at old photographs. From the big box of photographs in my mom's closet, I pulled out some of my favorites to share with the world. Since I found so many, I'm going to do two entries: one with photos of my great-grandparents, grandparents and parents, and one with me and my siblings.

Great-Grandparents

Unfortunately, I only found one photo of my family from three generations back, and it's only of my great-grandfather (sorry great-grandmother!)

This is actually the first and only photo I've seen of my great-grandfather. I asked my mother who was in the photo so I could do this blog entry and she told me who it was. This reminds me that after you die, only a few generations go by before someone in your family can look at a photo of you and not know who you are.

Anyway, here are lots of photos of my grandparents!

Grandparents

Here is a photograph of both of my grandparents.

What a cute couple! Although I don't know too much about their early lives together, there are many pictures of them in front of this house/apt, so I assume they lived here once.

Look! My grandma is playing the cello!

My mom says that this is more of a posed shot than a candid, but I pretend granny loved playing the cello and this somehow influenced me. Whether she really played cello or not, my grandfather's music genes must have been transferred to me! He played guitar (for real).

He was a really good guitar player and I remember seeing him when I was young and he would often play guitar and sing. He even was a famous celebrity played at a radio station.

Guess I'm not the first person in my family to strive for fame....

My favorite picture of my grandfather actually shows him holding a guitar:

When he wasn't playing guitar, he was fighting in wars.

There is a HUGE photo on my living room wall of my grandfather and his five brothers, all in uniform. They went to various wars and all came back safely.

While my grandfather was fighting in wars, my grandmother was getting ready to set sail on the Titanic.

Just kidding. (How awesome would it be to have a photo of my grandmother standing next to the Titanic?)

Well, eventually they started having kids. Here's a photo of my grandparents with one of my aunts.

And here is another, similar photo, except this one features Eric Mabius on the left (?!)

So before we move onto my parents, here is my favorite pictures of my grandparents.


Parents


One day, my mom was born.

Then she went to school (feat. her teacher, Ms. Hernandez)

When I saw this photo for the first time, I pointed out how there was only one black girl in the whole class. And my mom said, "That was my best friend!" Good job embracing all cultures Mom!

Here is my mom's senior picture.

I guess she didn't pass the "taking good senior portraits" gene on to me......

Here's another high school pic. She's about to go to a dance with some dude who apparently became my uncle or something?! Confusing.

The box of photographs I found mostly were very old so there aren't many pics of my parents. Luckily, the small number of pictures is made up with the sheer awesomeness of the one photo I did find, which shows my father is a most glamourous light.

Look at those short-shorts and that modelesque head-tilt! How glam.

So after many years of giving birth to a bunch of brats, my mother finally hit the jackpot and gave birth to me. Here I am during my baptism, being held by my godparents Aunt Susie and Uncle Jimmy.

PART II FORTHCOMING

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for part two and you know I'm going to have to show Aja

gabi

Justin said...

What a cool post!!! Your father's porn 'stache is very 70s ;-)

It *would* be super-cool to see your grandmother standing next to the Titanic, since it would mean she had had access to a time machine! ;-)

And I *kinda* think that might be a bass she's holding, not a cello, but I'm no expert. Maybe she's very, very short.

I'm a terrible photographer too. Any look at my flickr stream will bear that claim out. Plus I love old family photographs. I have a ton, and haven't scanned many of them in, but I *do* have a few pix of my mother from long before I was born (and most of them are from before she married my father). She used to be semi-famous in her own day -- she had her own radio programme on BBC radio for a while when she was a singer at age 16 or 17. She had lots of cheesecake and publicity photos and I scanned some in and have them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjmg/sets/72057594080103364/ Plus there are a couple of me as a little tyke [feat. goofy hat made of napkin].

Can't wait for part II!

Milo said...

I enjoyed the post. I too am fascinated by old pictures and of the past in general.

Tam said...

I see know where your sisters get their amazing hair.

My Grandparents used to have an old box of photos that everyone would drag out and reminisce about when I was a kid. They started writing stuff on the backs like who was in it and the year, because as you said, as the generations passed no one was sure. I wonder whatever happened to that box?

Thanks for sharing. Great pics.

Polt said...

And as big as you are now, punkin, I'm sure you could still fit into that baptism getup. :)

What saddens me, though, is with everyone taking digital photos now and storing them online, in a few generations will someone be able to find an old shoes box full of photographs of relatives like you did? Once we die, and take the passwords to Flickr with us, or our computer crashes without backing them up, well, who gets to see them then? Sad, no?

But then I think of you in the baptism outfit, and I smile and giggle and all is well with the world again.

HUGS...

Michelle M. said...

You saved the best photo for last - and you're doing your father's head tilt : ).

Justin said...

Polt, you luddite you, you just aged yourself quite literally more than every previous thing I've ever seen you type put together. :-) But you're right. It behooves us all to print out our pix and stuff them into shoeboxes in our attics!!

Michelle - I noticed the head-tilt thing too. But I was too distracted by the porn-'stache to comment. ;-)

The Honourable Husband said...

Great photos, Enrico, which should be treasured. Why let them languish in a shoebox? Blog them!

Just one thing. I think your grandmother is playing the double bass, rather than the cello. A favourite amongst hep-cat jazz hipsters of her day.

that's J-O-S-H said...

OMG, you and I are so similar! MY DAD rocked an awesome 'stache just like yours! SEE?!

And yeah, your mom is holding an upright bass, not a cello. A cello you stick between your legs like a whore. A bass you told like someone you don't really want to slow dance with during "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain.

Garret said...

Great post, great job! I love the old photos!

Delisa said...

lol @ Josh!

I really like these. Now I'll probably scan my entire photo album this summer when I get home.

In Polt's defense, I get what he's saying but when you think about it we take thousands of digital pictures (and delete even more). It would be terribly expensive to print all of those. I don't think memories will be lost, all you have to do is put your flickr account password in your will!

Mel said...

I've got shit-tons (my new favorite word, it seems) of old pics I need to get scanned in. My grandmother also has shit-tons of old family photos - some of them even old tintypes from before they had photographic paper (like way older than Polt, even).

dpaste said...

Your parents and I could swap stories about our childhoods.

Not sure I can ever speak to you again now. ;-)

Chris D. said...

Cool photos, thanks for sharing them with us. I love old photos as well. I scanned a bunch of old photos and made Data DVD's for my family a few years ago. It was interesting to see the trips my grand parents had taken, and to see them in a way (younger) than I had ever known them.

You look like you were quite a big baby.

I am looking forward to the next part.

Justin said...

David -- myself, I'm kiiiiinda hopin', what with all of Enrico's older siblings and all, and the vintage character of the photographs, that his parents are older than you and me. At least I have the advantage that all my college and HS friends got married relatively late and started having kids in their 30s so the oldest kid of all of my peers is only 15, so chatting with 20-somethings doesn't weird me out quite as much.

And if Enrico's parents *are* our age (or younger), then, well, *ahem* if you're going to be squeamish about so much as *speaking* to *Enrico*, then .... um .... *cough* *cough*

;-)

hoteltuesday said...

CELLO/BASS PEEPZ: I actually questioned what instrument it was but was too lazy to research! Thanks for the info!

Gabi: I know why you can't wait for part 2... because you want to see yourself on my blog!

Justin: Your momz was a fox! One day, my kids will look at pictures of ME as a famous singer...

Milo: I was partly inspired by your posts! I love when you post old photos.

Tam: You should search for the box! I'm sure it'd be pretty amazing to find it and look at the old photos. Then when you get your own blog, you can post them!

Polt: In some ways, it seems that pictures being online will cause people to lose the photos. On the other hand, it could also help the process of keeping them; you can't rip an internet photo and you know what they say: once something's on the internet, it's there forever! People just have to not use passwords.

Michelle M: I had to give one sneak peek so everyone would be dying to come back for part II, featuring ME prominently!

headbang8: I love them! If I weren't lazy, I would scan all of them.

Josh: LOL!

Garret: Thanks! Me too.

Delisa: Your childhood photos are so cute! You need to scan them.

Mel: Older than Polt?! No way. Before Polt, people had to get their portraits painted. Have any of those?

David: HMMM... Yet you 'speak to' Josh...

Chris D: I was a big baby! I was kind of chubby. I don't have any of those scanned those... Gotta find them.

Craig said...

What a great post! I love old photos!