And On This Day

Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003 - 9:02 a.m.

I have been having an absolute blast going through a box of old slides.

There are some minor annoyances, especially because most of the people who might have some idea who the subjects are in some of the slides are gone now, but lots of the slides have notes on them, and I recall most of what I was told about them by mom and dad when I last saw these slides about twenty years ago.

In any event, I thought I would show you a couple.

Here is my father, on the afternoon he graduated from Chico State University in mid-June of 1964 with his teaching degree. During the school year, he graded students, and during the summer, he graded peaches.

He's pictured here in cap and gown of course -- and he's also playing with Big Sam, the family cat. Sam is slightly out of focus, which, according to what my parents both told me, was pretty much par for the course as far as this particular cat was concerned; they really took quite a few pictures of him.

Anyway, the reason I'm showing you these here is because my parents really celebrated my father's graduation in a unique way -- for you see, according to what my mother once told me, these pictures were taken approximately six hours before I was conceived. What you see here is apparently the last few moments of my father's life as a truly happy man.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Dad always had a good sense of humor, and he laughed a lot, and he was as good to us as he knew how to be -- but as far as I've ever been able to discern, there was never another candid photograph taken of him in which he was smiling.

But at least I do have these, the images of a young man full of dreams -- before the weight of the world settled on his shoulders.

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