January Theme Day: Picture Of the Year

My brother, sisters and I got together after Christmas in New Jersey. One of my sisters had a big box of old family photos going back at least 67 years, many of which I had never seen. She made a CD for each of us of all the best ones and gave each of us a small box of images from our own childhoods.

The treasure was pictures of our parents from their early years together. They were married in 1940. Jack and Ann look happy in these pictures, very much in love. We think the one on the right is from their honeymoon. Three of their four parents were immigrants, hers from Poland, his father from Ireland and his mother first generation Irish-American. Her parents both died within days of her birth in the 1918 flu pandemic. He left the premier Catholic boys high school in New York City in the 20s to go to work on Wall Street, where there was money to be made, even for the most junior clerks.

My mother had chronic medical problems that were eventually resolved. I didn't arrive until 1950 and then, bum bum bum, four of us in eight years. There were more difficult times later. He outlived her by 21 years. But together they must have done many good things for their children. We are all still in our first marriages, all of us are college graduates and three have graduate degrees, all are prosperous. We are grateful to them.

These pictures and others like them, just presented to me, were my pictures of the year so I thought I would share them with you. If you'd like to know what I think was my best blog picture this year, click here - maybe the best portrait I've ever made - followed by this one, a musician of exceptional clarity, one who has vision of his sound.

TOMORROW: Water skiing in the Mississippi River in January. Strange but true.