The Future at Mid-Century

                                       1939             1941          1943        1944        1945

My father, Jack Hicks Hopper, stands behind Susan and his pack of sons, my brothers.

Each birth year is under the child.

Since they are still wearing the matching clamdiggers

Mom made for the trip west in the summer of 1947, this

might be autumn 1947 or summer of 1948. 
Robert looks enough older for it to be 1948.

I think the location is in our back yard in Scotia, NY, at 316 First St.


Last night my brother (1944 in the photo above)
asked me how I can remember all this stuff. 
Of course, I was older than he then--that's the main thing!

But I have been reading Mary Karr's new book,
The Art of Memoir;
Here's a snippet:

"So a single image can split open the hard seed of the past, and soon memory pours forth from every direction, sprouting its vines and flowers up around you until the old garden's taken shape in all its fragrant glory. Almost unbelievable how much can rush forward to fill an absolute blankness."

Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir, Harper, 2015, Kindle location 351

(Like all of Mary Karr's books, this one is a doozy!)

***

      

Another brother (Robert, 1945) who died in 1997, is responsible

for the name of this blog. When he wa very ill, he wrote some short memoirs. He said you just began to pull a little "piece of string" and the memories came forth, one by one, or in cascades.

        And the photographs, like the one above, really help!