Footprints
This photo, as might seem obvious, was taken to be printed alongside a series of columns I did back in highschool, for one of the local newspapers.
If I wanted to, I could go to the local library and look myself up on the periodicals, and look at past printed evidence of my existence. I'm dimly aware that some people liked my columns enough to clip them out and stick them in a scrapbook.
I remember I was once, in my teens, out at the local scout camp for some sort of camp, and we were going through the dusty contents of a coffee table in the chalet. We found a number of well out-dated Leader magazines, and an old photo album. We flipped through it, seeing many miscellaneous photos of past scout troops (well past) and things that didn't make much sense out of context. However, we found a series of photos taken the very first year the scout camp was opened, which according to this book was around 1987. The amazing part? I was in some of them. I was only four or five by the looks of things, and obviously not aware in the photos of the true meaning of the event. It was a strange feeling. The scout camp was consciously like a home-away-from-home for me, but I hadn't realized I'd been present for it's actual inception. It was like seeing photos of one's own birth.
The thought that I am unknowingly a part of a tradition or in someone's scrapbook somewhere, somehow means more to me than a byline in a newspaper. When we live our whole lives in one place, we leave a footprint- and the size of the footprint is measured by how many lives we touch. Even in small ways.
If I wanted to, I could go to the local library and look myself up on the periodicals, and look at past printed evidence of my existence. I'm dimly aware that some people liked my columns enough to clip them out and stick them in a scrapbook.
I remember I was once, in my teens, out at the local scout camp for some sort of camp, and we were going through the dusty contents of a coffee table in the chalet. We found a number of well out-dated Leader magazines, and an old photo album. We flipped through it, seeing many miscellaneous photos of past scout troops (well past) and things that didn't make much sense out of context. However, we found a series of photos taken the very first year the scout camp was opened, which according to this book was around 1987. The amazing part? I was in some of them. I was only four or five by the looks of things, and obviously not aware in the photos of the true meaning of the event. It was a strange feeling. The scout camp was consciously like a home-away-from-home for me, but I hadn't realized I'd been present for it's actual inception. It was like seeing photos of one's own birth.
The thought that I am unknowingly a part of a tradition or in someone's scrapbook somewhere, somehow means more to me than a byline in a newspaper. When we live our whole lives in one place, we leave a footprint- and the size of the footprint is measured by how many lives we touch. Even in small ways.
posted by Phinux | 5:03 AM
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