The upcoming onslaught of holiday photo-taking reminded me of a piece I penned after finding yet another box of undated photos. Ever find one of those boxes and swear you'll ID all the photos in your computer and bins and albums? Sure. You'll do it! Right after you get back from that boat cruise to the Isles of Langerhans.
Everyone who has ever said, "Oh, I wish I could go back and live the simple lives my ancestors enjoyed," please do me a favor.
Look at photos of your ancestors, especially pictures taken near the turn of the 20th century.
And then, as you wonder why people in those days looked as though they'd all been told Little Johnny had "the epizooty" or consumption or some other fatal illness, get back to me if you aren't glad you're here now, with your digital camera, scanner and super-digitalized-auto-non-pixilated everything.
I say this because I've recently been involved in an exhaustive effort to identify and catalog pictures I've taken over the years, and those handed down to me by relatives who didn't care to ID our scary, sullen-looking forefathers and foremothers.
I've seen the expressions on the faces of my husband's and my relatives, staring ahead morosely as if to say, "You'd look this dejected, too, if you were wearing a corset, having your photo taken took all day AND you knew that your life expectancy was up … oops! Tomorrow!"
And looking at their grim mugs, I know one thing for sure: Had I been born before 1900, I probably would have taken one peek at family photos and killed myself in hopes reincarnation worked.
FACES FROM THE GRAVE
For example, take -- I mean literally. Take them, please -- the pictures of my husband's great-great-grandparents, Eliza and W.W. Steed.
W.W., which stands, I think, for Weed-like Whiskers, appears to have indigestion from eating too much hoecake before enjoying a rousing after-dinner game of "Let's Forge a Trail to Somewhere."
And plump Eliza, who reminds me of a dark-haired, unhappy Quaker Oats man, looks like she's just been told that her new corset, with twice the power of the old one, has arrived by Pony Express.
I can't tell you how old the Steeds were in these shots, because apparently, before 1900, people who were 25 looked like someone who's 65 these days and people who were 50 weren't in pictures, because they were dead, or at least wished they were.
In the most morbidly fascinating entry in my collection, my maternal grandmother, great-grandmother, great-uncle and great-great grandmother are dressed in their finest in front of the old homestead, Little Ugly House in the Woods.
The Perkinses stand, arms hanging stiffly at their sides, about three feet away from each other, all sporting that "Little Johnny's 'bout dead" look.
My grandmother and great-uncle do not look like carefree children, to put it mildly. I think it's because they're afraid that once the photo shoot is done, they will have to kiss their grandma, Mary, who in the photo is dressed from her shawl-covered head to her toes in black and is seated sidesaddle on a horse.
Granny Mary, I've learned, didn't believe people of color had souls. That probably explains why she looks ready to gallop off to the strains of the bike-riding music in "Wizard of Oz," or to meet the Headless Horseman for a batch of whatever a man without a head and a woman without a heart eat.
I look at her pinched, angry face. And shudder. And thank my lucky ancestral stars I was born several generations after the original Wicked Witch.
JUST SHOOT ME
In reality, I realize folks in photos way back when had good reasons to look so tired, bored and old, things like hard lives, poor health habits, long trips to the outhouse and no cable TV.
And probably, because it took forever to set up a picture in the era when cameras were as big as a dinner table and "flash" meant smoky magnesium, people got surly as they waited to be photographed.
So relive "the good old days?" Look like THAT in photos? Uh -- not in this lifetime, thank you.
I just hope that before I meet Granny Mary and the gang, I can track down and destroy any unattractive photos of myself, including the Halloween shot where I'm wearing a black dress, black hat, black hose and a too-many-beers grin.
I'd hate to see myself, for eternity, propped up on a shelf next to Granny Mary, as some poor kid who got stuck with the family photos wonders aloud:
"Whoa! What was HER problem? And doesn't she remind you just a little of that old bat on the horse?"
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