Hiatus

And life goes on. I thank you for being with me on this photo journey through my life, and though the journey will, I pray, continue for quite some time, and while there are still many, many more photos of people in my life, I think it is time to take a break. Not sure whether I'll resume on a regular basis, or just do sporadic new entries, but again I think you for being with me.

And while this blog has emphasized my exterior, I hope you will now consider exploring how my mind works through my other blogs (http://www.doriengreyandme.blogspot.com), "A World Ago" (http//www.doriengrey.blogspot.com) and my books.

And remember, too, that you can always contact me at doriengrey@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Later, my friend.

Roots 16

One of the saddest things about our society is how soon and how easily we forget those people without whom we would not exist. This early 1930s photo of dad's maternal grandparents, the Adams (I am ashamed not to remember their first names!). Both died when I was very young, but I remember that Dad adored Grandma Adams, and that she always kept cookies...ginger snaps, if memory serves, which it often doesn't...in a round tin. I remember almost nothing about Grandma Adams except that he was a crusty old soul who smoked a pipe and didn't say much. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, my dad'd middle name, Guerdon, was the name of the captain of the boat on which Grandma Adams came over from Ireland. Why do I not know more? Why do you not know more of your forebearers?

Roots: My Family 1

And as this photoblog comes to a close (there are many more photos, but they are largely strolls from the main path). So I thought I'd put up this picture of Dad's side of my family, taken somewhere in the 1950s: Dad's mom is front row, left, his half-sister Marjorie (Bonne) beside her. On the couch from left are Pete Bonne, Marge's husband, their daughter Shirley, Al Ameeley, Grandma's husband, holding Sandy Bonne, then Dad and Mom. I'm on the floor, right. Since Aunt Marge's death two years ago, I have totally lost track of Sandy and Shriley, the only remaiing members of Dad's side. Life is strange.

Roots 15

A "typically average" young woman stands on the "typically average" porch of a "typically average" American home in the early 1920s. And in some ways, my mother was a typically average woman of her time. But "average" is a surface word, hiding the fact that every human being is unique in the universe. No one had her smile, or her laugh, or all those millions of little things which separated her from everyone else. And no one could possibly have been a better mother.

Roots 14

Dad loved sports, and poses here, somewhere around 1940, in his baseball uniform, probably from an amateur team organized by his work. I always felt I was a great disappointment to Dad because I did not share his sports interests or abilities, and only recently have come to realize that even if he was disappointed, it in no wasy affected (as I feared at the time) his love for me.

Roots 13

Photos often raise more questions than they answer. This early-1930's photo is obviously of my dad, left, and my grandfather Gus, right. But who is the man in the middle? When, exactly, was it taken? Where? And why are dad and grandpa Margason looking so dapper...even to the point of Dad sporting a cane? Time steals facts so quickly. And it is our fault for not marking each and every photo we take with some sort of identification for future years.

Roots 12

The concept of "now" is difficult to really grasp. But look closely at this photo. It's not just of my dad working at a gas station in 1929 Rockford, Illinois (I'm sorry I do not know the name of his friend), it is a tiny piece of now captured forever. It may not be the now through which we are traveling at this instant, but it is, for dad and the world captured in this photo, just as real as ours.