Assembling

I am working now on the last batch of family
When one starts to go through family photographs,
(since one is the oldest sibling and can identify the most people, places and things)

1) It is a lot of work
2) It takes a lot of time
3) It makes you think and rethink your principles of organization
4) It makes you want to revisit the past, and retake some of the pictures
5) It makes you happy all over again to belong to what Robert (second from left) named your FOO (family of origin)

Here we are assembling for that Icon of American Life; the family photograph of children in a line.
Here is a link to the first version I found, a photo made from the next slide that was very faded. Now I have found the original slide and the one taken just before it (abovonee)
Because the boys are wearing white shirts, this is Sunday and we are either going or coming from church. I am wearing one of my favorite pleated skirts which I made and the blouse I made to go with it. I made many of these skirts and used the blouse pattern at least three times.

I recently got a copy of the book that won a recent James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, YOU AND THREE OTHERS ARE APPROACHING A LAKE by Anna Moschovakis, Coffee House Press, 2011, page 18.

I quite like these poems. Here is one:

Human wants:

First the necklace of bone
then the shift of leather

tea, tobacco and gambling

in other words

ten men could live on the corn
where only one can live on the beef

* Anna Moschovakis *

The family pictures are reminding me how simply we lived, not a lot of fancy clothes, no eating out, no theme parties, play dates or other requisites of today's family lives. We played and sometimes with an animal, and the boys played with each other. I am often reminded of my brothers when I see video of wolf cubs, or fox cubs playing and pouncing.