OLD PHOTOS

 
I love the way old family photos capture moments of history—personal, cultural, social, political, etc. Like this shot from the 1950s of my Uncle John Lally, who lived next door and was my father's youngest brother. A critic might say it's framed badly, but not me. I like that we can see the fancy three tone doorbell device at the top left, and the vertical pipe at the top right that came up from the cellar and went to the attic where in previous years as a little boy I slept with my two sisters who would all wake, with everyone else still sleeping, to our mother banging on it with a kitchen utensil as our human alarm clock. 

I also like the brand new knocker on the door, a rarity on our working-class block where we just used our knuckles, but my father had a home maintenance business and installed the latest trends in home accoutrements to please my mother and show off the possibilities, like the aluminum screen door when everyone else's were still wooden.

And down in the left corner on top of a radiator covering (another stylish rarity) two miniature elephant bookends kept upright a miniature library of tiny Shakespeare tomes, another of my mother's touches. She had graduated from high school so was vastly more formally educated than our father who dropped out of seventh grade to go to work. I think I was the only one who actually labored over the tiny print to read all the little volumes.

My Uncle John was the only person on our street who wore a suit and tie to work in an office, even though he only had a high school education. I adored him because he was, to me, the kindest of all the grown men in the clan and neighborhood. I would pester him to sing the latest novelty song when I was little, like "Mairsydotes and lamsydotes and liddellamsydivey" etc. and not only would he not belittle me or dismiss my pleas or make me feel foolish for my enthusiasm, but he'd also sing the song.

The story in this shot, according to my memory, is that my oldest sibling Tommy, aka Franciscan friar Father Campion, is opening the door to my Uncle John and his surprise birthday party, his wife my Aunt Mary, the only Protestant in the family but the one we all knew we could rely on, behind him. She had been a nurse at the TB hospital Uncle John went to in upstate New York in the 1930s, where they married, and would return to nursing soon after this photo was made, as Uncle John had cancer and would soon be gone.

(C) 2021 Michael Lally