Saturday's Old Photo

I know last week’s photo was a real teaser, and you’ve been waiting with bated breath all week for today’s photo of my second pair of childhood glasses.  Here they are. What do you think? 

At the time, I thought they were rather sophisticated, and why would anyone question a twelve year old’s judgment of things sophisticated? 

This was the year I decided to have my hair cut short..  I wanted a pixie-type cut, but curly hair didn’t do pixie well.  Since it was school picture day, I had probably plastered my bangs down with a pink glob of Dippity-do and that’s why there’s no little horn of hair sticking straight up on the right side where the part is.  On an average day, that little horn would have been there, doing it’s best to detract from the sophistication of the glasses.

I promise this is the last post in the mini series featuring the bad glasses of Rebecca’s life.  This not because there aren’t more bad glasses to feature. Here’s the thing—bad glasses on a youngster are cute; but by the time you’re twenty, they’ve become downright embarrassing.

Saturday's Old Photo

It’s been a busy day, so I’m posting an old photo that needs little comment.  It’s me, aged 8, first pair of glasses.  They were bright blue with sparkles and very gaudy.  I really liked them, which goes to show that there’s no accounting for an eight-year-old’s taste in fashion.

 

I take that back.  I really liked them for a while.  Then I wanted a new pair that had a more sophisticated librarian look, but my parents were big believers in the old adage, “If they ain’t broke, you don’t need a new pair.” 

 

I took that as a challenge, but I’d met my match in this set of frames. Indestructable, they were, standing up to repeated runovers by my bicycle tires without so much as a scratch.

 

Eventually, in sixth grade, I got a new set of frames, not because I succeeded in breaking this pair, but because I finally outgrew them.  Maybe next week I’ll show you that there’s really no accounting for a twelve-year-old’s taste in fashion, either.

Saturday's Old Photo

Monday is oldest son’s birthday, so shouldn’t today’s old photo be one of him? This picture was taken sometime in the spring after he turned two.

 

He’d been crying before this photo was taken. Can you see the glisten of tears in his eyes? He hadn’t wanted to sit by himself away from the rest of his family. As long as he was close to his sister or a parent, he was a sedate child who didn’t require a lot of attention, but he did not do well off by himself until he was older.

 

He was a watcher first, and then a doer. No trial and error learning for this boy. He did a lot of sitting and watching older children play—he was not the sort of toddler who required chasing—and then one day he’d get up and do whatever it was he’d been watching the older kids do. When he was eighteen months old, he hopped on his older sister’s trike for the first time and pedaled off slowly, which was his normal speed for everything, but without any struggle to coordinate the pedaling.

 

He was never one to flit from one activity to another. The summer he was four, his goal was to catch a grasshopper. For hours at a time, for days that turned into weeks, he sneaked around the greenbelt behind our home, crouched over Hamburgler style, cupped hands turned downward and outstretched, stalking the elusive locust. He never did catch one, but t*The pursuit kept him busy for almost the whole summer.

 

He turns 28 on Monday. He still can hyperfocus when he decides he wants to accomplish something, but thankfully, his goals have changed over the years.

 

*Update: I’ve been corrected by the locust chaser himself, who says, “I’m pretty sure I caught some.” If he did, he didn’t show them to me.