It's Like Asking Niagara Not To Fall

This morning I sat pouring over someone else's memories. A tingle in my stomach, and gnaw on my heart soon coaxed tiny pools of water to puddle in the corners of my eyes. My eyes didn't cry though-- Just puddling, pooling, and drying. Sort of the anti-cry, because I knew it was silly to be sentimental for something I didn't even own. There was something inside me that wanted it for myself, but then I realized that one day I'll have just as many memories to sprinkle bittersweet tears on.

Some friends of my mine, HYMNS just returned from a small tour, and had stopped off in Niagara Falls for tourist time. This provoked me to look up funny photos of tourists taking photos of themselves in front of the falls (I shouldn't be telling people this stuff.), which lead me to this amazing cache of vintage photos from one flickr member. *

Here are her memories:

"I grew up on Conesus Lake, New York."

"My mother called this my Robert Mitchum look."

"During the summer of 1970, when my husband, Jeff, was 19, his parents went away for a short trip. He took this opportunity to have a party at his parent's house. Stories for the ages were made, but Jeff forbids me to add them here. Four of the nine have passed away -- a high mortality rate for a bunch of guys who should all be in their fifties."

"This was Jeff's childhood home in Carle Place, Long Island, NY. This was the end of the Colonial Revival period and Jeff's family lived in an area of Long Island developed by William Levitt of Levittown fame. "

"Mae Elizabeth Ann Quinn Richards, 1947, while dating my father."

"My father started working for Kodak after returning from the war in the Pacific. He was a manager in the department that produced x-ray film and worked there until his early death at 51 in 1971. I found this large transparency among his things after his death. It may have been a commercial photo for a Kodak ad."

These photos reminded me of a vacation my family took to visit my stepdad's parents in Florida. Early one morning we received a phone call from my grandpa who had been feeding our pets while we were away. His tired and weathered voice explained that the pipe leading to our washing machine had burst and leaked into our basement, filling up the entirety with about 1.5 feet of water. Stored in the basement were clothes, furniture, decorations, but most importantly, boxes and boxes of photographs! My mother was devastated. Upon cutting our visit short and booking it back to North Carolina, my mom sat on our back deck for weeks mixing her tears with the already sopping vintage glossies, and peeled them from their respective albums, wallpapering the wood with them as they dried in the sun. Those that weren't in albums were stuck together, and she worked diligently for hours peeling them apart with minimal damage. I now have many baby photos with smeary red lines from the water damage. 

I hope one day someone finds our smeary memories, and gets a little bleary-eyed too. 

*See Beverly's blog for a another flickr member's cache of great vintage photos.