Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Last week I was helping my mother go through some closets and drawers in preparation for an eventual move out of their now-too-large house, the home I spent a large portion of my childhood in. In my old bedroom, in a box in the closet, we found a number of framed, old photos. I have seen them all at one time or another, but not in many years and saw them differently with adult eyes. There were requisite black and white 8×10’s of me and Loren when we were babies; my mother and her brother in hand-tinted graduation photos that hung in the living room of my mother’s family home, where I remember them until my grandmother moved out shortly before her death; and this interesting photo of my father as a toddler, holding a toy truck, with his mother and father.

I just took a quick picture of the photo with my phone so it isn’t the best reproduction. I cleaned the dust off it and while, watching the endless loop of CNN with my dad, I tackled polishing the silver frame. The container of silver polish they had was a bit ancient or I might have gotten better results, but I did get it clean enough to realize that someone’s initials which did not belong to the Butler family, were featured at the top of the frame. I’m sure it was one of my grandmother’s auction house finds – she never would have let something like initials interfere with a silver frame for a good price.

I get my collecting gene from her, Gertrude Butler, nee Rosensweig – a haunter of auctions, collector of costume jewelry which she piled into jewelry boxes I loved to dig in as kid. She was always perfectly turned out, gorgeous brocade patterned dresses of another era, hair carefully waved, make-up done and most certainly red lipstick on. Still, even with that memory I am surprised by how much of a babe she is in this photo – hair and clothes styled  to the moment, sleek and elegant, intelligent widely spaced eyes. There’s something a bit steely in them I don’t remember – but she died when I was very young and of course she only ever looked adoringly at her grandchildren.

My grandfather is a good looking man and very dapper here – more so than I remember although he was always handsome. Although I think of my father looking like him, I can see here he has a lot of his mother in him too. He is holding something between his fingers I can’t identify – not a cigarette, looks almost like maybe a piece of another toy or what you use to click the camera shutter, which doesn’t really make sense.

And then there’s my dad, Elliott, Ellie to his parents – and only to them. He is an only child although he had cousins who were close, like a brother and sister. I remember my grandmother showing me one of his long golden curls she saved. (My sister got that curly hair, but always chestnut brown, lighter than my own straight, darker hair.) This was especially remarkable because as an adult he has virtually black hair, still curly, and a dark, swarthy complexion. Ironic that he’s holding a toy truck – I can’t imagine anyone with less interest in cars than my father. He’s looking off, at the photographer, who I imagine is holding a birdie in his hand. Maybe he’s thinking about a future filled with cameras like this one.