A Favorite Thing: Technology that Preserves the Past

Me!

I guess you could say technology had a hand in ruining the photo album that contained my baby pictures.

As Hurricane Irene approached in August of 2011, my husband waited on line for five hours at Home Depot to purchase a new generator to keep our sump pumps running if (and eventually when) we lost power. Long story short, the generator was defective; the basement got water; the photo album got soaked.

My parents and me -- dig that groovy wallpaper!!!

When it dried out, lots of the pictures were stuck together and ruined.  The whole thing was falling apart, and I stuck it in a plastic bag so I wouldn't have to look at it.

But technology has also now preserved the pictures I was able to salvage from the album when I finally got motivated to do something about it a year and a half later.  This morning, in fact.

My aunt, Jeanine, is my godmother.

The nifty little photo scanner my husband gave me was the perfect piece of technology to get these pictures into digital form where I could fix rips and wrinkles and water damage and now, hopefully, permanently preserve them.

Whenever my brothers and sister and I saw this particular picture in the album, we were sure that woman on the magazine cover was our mother!

I haven't seen these pictures in a long time, and it's amazing how they spur very strong and vivid memories -- the texture of that blanket on the couch, the funny-shaped coffee table, the Lazy Susan (that my mother still has and uses!).

I'm so glad I didn't lose this four-generation photo.  My great-grandmother came from Poland, and we called her Babci.

As kids, we didn't know what a difficult life my grandmother had raising her five children, of which my mother was the eldest. We, her suburban grandkids, thought it was very cool that she lived in an apartment(!) in a city(!).  I guess because we didn't see her as often, we called her Grandma #2.

Proximity must have bestowed the title of Grandma #1 on my father's mother, as she and my aunt Jeanine lived just a few houses away from us and we spent time with them frequently.

My parents only had one car and my father needed it for work, so Grandma drove us to school on rainy days (and took us to 7-11 for Slurpees in the summer!).

Too many pierogis, fat baby?

So many happy memories...that's why some technology is a favorite thing.


Favorite Thing host, Claudia at Mockingbird Hill Cottage, was talking about the internet and other pervasive technology earlier this week.  That discussion kind of led to this post.  Go see her and lots more favorite things here, and have a lovely weekend.