What makes a Hottentot so hot? What puts the Ape in Apricot?

One of the projects I've taken on is scanning photos of my mom from my parents' old photo albums. Because Ronnie is pretty expert at photo storage and preservation, we have a lot of the oldest of these here to be reset into archival storage. In the meantime, I am scanning these images. After I do this I will go back and scan the images that my mom is not in (i.e., mostly pictures of me- see below).

Among the ones I'm currently working on is an album from our trip to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). My father went there for a year or so to do research for his doctoral thesis, which was about economics of the developing world. Once he was settled there, my mom brought me (I was about 20 months old) to join him.

I've seen a lot of these pictures before, more than I'd seen some of the other oldies (including those from soon after my birth), but what struck me now is how impossibly brave my parents, and especially my mom, were. Yeah, they'd run away to Reno on a Greyhound bus and eloped, so they definitely had some gumption as a couple. But thinking about my mom taking a toddler halfway around the world by herself is pretty astounding to think about.

I have to ask my dad how we got to Europe. We must have flown- he did. But there weren't any flights to southern Africa. The distances were too great for the planes of that era. So we took a ship, from London I think, to Cape Town, South Africa. Crossed the equator, all that. Then, we took a train to Rhodesia, where my dad met up with us. Just my mom and me. Like I said, pretty courageous.

Granted, I was the kind of kid with whom you could get away with this sort of crazy scheme. I was a happy, independent kid, and (especially) cute too. I'm sure I had my moments, but I wasn't a whiner or cryer as it were. Twenty months is a pretty agreeable age too. But still. Who would do that kind of thing now?

But I never remember my mom being fearful. She was resolute and positive, not stoic. She enjoyed rising to a challenge. She wan't always successful, of course. I saw her defeated a few times. But she was undeterred by any kind of setback.

One thing I can tell you about doing this project. It's a good thing I don't mind looking at pictures of myself. My dad always liked taking pictures and I was their first kid, but my god. Another thing I noticed is that my parents were pretty easy on the eyes back in the day. I mean, they're not like 'hot' or model gorgeous, but they were nice looking.

You can also see from the get go how close my parents were to each other. It's pretty amazing how well they did when they were separated. Once they no longer had to be away from each other, they seldom were.

The last group I did today was a bunch of pictures from my first photo album. I took pictures with a Kodak Brownie camera, got them printed, and my mom had me dictate captions. There's a few of my friends, some nice ones of my parents, and a few of my paternal grandparents in front of their store. Quite something to see. It was a whole different world.

This project, which I was afraid might be depressing, has felt more soulful, or soulfilling, perhaps. If nothing else, it reminds you of how important it is to really live your life, not to take things for granted and to go after whatever it is you want to reach for.