My mother retired from the Woolco Department Store on Lambton Mall Rd. in Sarnia, in the spring of 1985. She and Dad were about to embark on a grand adventure, having decided to pull up stakes and move back across the country to their beloved home province of Nova Scotia, after twenty-six years in Ontario. This move had been contemplated for some time, and now that my youngest sister, Noelle, had graduated from St. Pat's High School, she too had expressed a desire to begin her post-grad life in these new surroundings.
Mom had talked of the many things she planned to do in her retirement years; setting up a new home, gardening, walks in nature, trying new recipes, and visiting the many relatives the family still had in the area. But the one thing she kept on about was the need and the desire to finally get her treasured collection of photographs organized. She also knew this was a daunting task, given the dozens of shoeboxes, and several plastic grocery bags, filled with her visual memories, some dating back beyond her youth.
Fast forward twenty-eight years. Mom passed away in December of 2013, not having fully completed that task. Yes, she spent time at it, and there was some progress towards her goal, but in the end, there were still piles of unsorted photos, still in the boxes and bags that she had transported them in from Ontario, all those years ago. I'm sure, to many of you, this may be a familiar story.
What finally did happen to all those photos, was that they were divvied up among us seven remaining siblings, in such a manner as to have each photo evoke some personal meaning to those who received them. I took my own shoebox full of mom's treasures home with me. . . and wouldn't you know it, they had remained stashed away, high on a closet shelf, until just recently. And, as you can imagine, knowing my love for this creative medium, these keepsake photos are just a footnote to the many thousands of images I have personally taken in the last fifty years, ever since early high school and the eventual purchase of my first film camera, a Canon AE-1 SLR.
The greatest thing about inheriting old photos is that they often tell a story, and not surprisingly, a possible history lesson also. At first glance, we may not hear the whispers of those tales being told. Do we even know who the subject matter is in that old black and white image? And if we don't, how do we find out? Does it matter that we know? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding YES! But with a caveat. . .
Not everyone is interested in the past. If history and your ancestry doesn't interest you, then pack those old, dog-eared and faded photos away and call it a day. Someday, hopefully someone will deem them important enough to explore further. But if you are like me, receiving those treasures from my mom's collection was something special. I knew someday, I would deal with the contents of that shoebox in a proper manner.
Fast forward eleven years, now to present day. I have had lots of time to think of a viable way of preserving the memories the old shoebox holds. Ironically, my own preverbal "shoebox" of images sits, not in an old taped-up carton, but on several digital hard drives. So, with full intent, and with the ways and means I have now available to me, I started digitizing all of my old prints that I have had stored away for all these years.
It was around then, I had a eureka moment. I had just spent the last five years writing and editing my biography, Perpetual Motion. If ever there was a platform to showcase my collection of visual memories, this was it. I have hundreds of images that directly correspond to incidents and storylines in my book, but way too many to include in each individual copy. I had to find a better way. It was then that the concept for this website was born. I would attempt to visualize each chapter with random images from my own collection. This could work!
As I stated in previous posts, this is a fluid project. The website will often change as I navigate my vision for it becoming an interactive platform. So, as of today, I have added another section titled: "Perpetual Motion Image Gallery." In it you will see a few randomly selected photos with a title, a bit of a description and a corresponding chapter listed. My end goal is to have at least one, and possibly several images for each of the fifty-one chapters in the book.
As can be with old photos, some of them are definitely not gallery worthy, except that they are for my "gallery" purposes. Some will be blurry, scratched or faded, but all will reflect a snippet of my life.
This is just the beginning. I still have hundreds of physical images to digitize yet. It will take time, ironically, a commodity I have lots of (I hope!) I do know that I will be adding new images to the gallery on a regular basis, so check back periodically to see the progress towards a full visualization of the stories and tales I have penned.
There is still no firm date for the book release as of yet, but it's getting close. It's in the publisher's hands now. You will be the first to know, when I finally get the info.
Speaking of which, I have decided to choose two random website subscribers to receive a free, signed copy of Perpetual Motion, to start. This draw will take place March 15, 2024. I chose that date because of its personal significance to my story. On that date, I will have been retired a full eleven years from the Fire Service. If you win, you will be notified by me personally, not some random bot. I will then, need a mailing address to pass your book along, once I have received the first run. Good luck to all!
And as always, if you are receiving this newsletter by email, thank you for subscribing! If you're not, hit that "Subscribe" button in the Contact section and get all the up-to-the-minute news and several more chances to win a signed copy of the book.
Spring is just around the corner. . . can't wait!
Dana