Photo albums have lost a considerable amount of their popularity nowadays… as so many of us have.
I’m referring, of course, to the physical photo album books such as our parents and grandparents kept in a cardboard box in the closet, documenting in visual form the important events — and maybe, unimportant events — of a family’s history.
But the ‘photo album’ as a general concept is alive and well, if we want to count ‘virtual’ photo albums as sort of the same thing. Pretty much anyone with a smart phone has a collection of pictures available at a moment’s notice, stashed in their pocket or their purse, with entirely too many photos of entirely too many unimportant events.
I gave up on ‘physical photo albums’ after my divorce. Actually, my ex-wife Darlene had consistently been the chief overseer of our photo albums, downloading the photos at Walmart and printing out the most important ones to insert in our shared photo album. Typically, this process took place upon the return from this or that vacation or holiday or friend’s wedding.
Darlene did not often include pictures from funerals in the photo album, although she did include a photo, once, of a nasty car accident we passed outside of Albuquerque.
But in teh divorce, she got all the photo albums… which only made sense, since she had taken the 90% of the photos, and had made all the trips to Walmart to print them out, and had wasted so many hours inserting the photos into the plastic sleeves in the proper order.
In the interests of fairness, I got all the back issues of “Guns & Ammo” magazine that we’d collected. Not quite the same thing, but better than nothing.
For a couple of years after the divorce, I didn’t take any photos. (I should mention, Darlene also got the Nikon camera.) Then I broke down and got a smart phone, with a built-in camera. At that point, I could have started my own digital photo album. In fact, I could set up a whole host of photo albums, focused on different themes.
But I didn’t start any albums on my phone. And the reason is fairly simple. A photo album is supposed to be a collection of pictures documenting happy times.
The nephew’s high school graduation. Your college roommate’s third marriage, with a ceremony on the beach in Cozumel. Your new car. Your new house. Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary. Your new puppy. Christmas with the in-laws at Copper Mountain.
My photo album opportunities were limited after the divorce. To say the least. The nephew was Darlene’s nephew. I’d lost contact with my college roommate. (Darlene didn’t like him.) I didn’t have a new car. My house was an older single-wide I rented for way too much money. My cat Roscoe didn’t tolerate puppies. I no longer had any in-laws to invite me to Copper Mountain and pay for the vacation rental.
I won’t discuss Mom and Dad’s 50th, for reasons of privacy.
But one day, I had an epiphany. (I think that’s what you call it.) Who made it a law that you should only take photos when something supposedly “happy” is happening?
Why can’t a photo album be a record of all the unhappy times you’ve had?
This kind of thing, I could manage.
One of my favorite pictures was taken on Valentine’s Day — February 14, 2015 — when I had a date with one of the waitresses from McDonalds. (Are they called “waitresses”? Maybe “crew person”?) She was just my type, a little bit overweight with naturally wavy hair (I presume) dyed purple with turquoise ends, and so easy to make laugh. When a girl laughs out loud at my classic “Two ducks walked into a bar…” joke, I can’t help but invite her out for a Valentine’s Day dinner.
Her name was Caroline. She laughed again, when I broke into the chorus of “Sweet Caroline”. But the manager gave me a dirty look, so I stopped singing and asked her to write her phone number on the bag.
The photo in my album shows the table at Boss Hogg’s restaurant, with an opened bottle of red wine and two wine glasses, and a heart-shaped mylar balloon from City Market tied to the empty chair where Caroline will be sitting, any moment. In the background, you can vaguely see two other happy couples enjoying their Valentine’s Day dinner, and behind them, a waiter delivering a tray of food.
I could have easily deleted this photo from my album, because Caroline never showed up. (She told me later, at McDonalds, that she forgot.)
It’s really easy to delete photos on your phone.
But this picture fits perfectly into my “Disappointing Moments” photo album.
I have a couple of other albums. “Broken Objects I’ve Found Around the House”. And “Things Roscoe Barfed Up.”
I have ideas for other albums.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.