Which Image is More Important? Which Image is More Real?

Tonight’s post is short.  Because of something I saw my mind has wandered into the idea of creating a chronology of some of my deeds and misdeeds, of some of my regrets and some of my triumphs.  There will come a time when these memories are gone, gone like dust wiped off a table in anticipation of the next dinner guest.  I am going to list every year 1956 to 2019 and try and put beside the year two or three events that still resonate.

What sparked this was my decision to take a picture to post on the blog.  I walked up under a bent sunflower that stood about 8 foot high.  Quickly I raised my camera and took a shot, I figure I would have to adjust it a bit.  When I sat down here at the ELPL, at my table for writing, I started to tweak the image. When I upped the exposure I discovered that inadvertently I had caught a bee working this plant.  Conversely when I upped the exposure I lost the clouds that were so wonderfully placed behind the very large flower.  Ultimately I opted for a collage to capture both the bee and the clouds.

Making the choices on what to focus in prepping that photo started me down the rabbit hole.  What events should I try and capture in my writing over these next few weeks?  What images were more important?  I can tell you that on Tuesday November 8 1960 I got my ass whupped by my Aunt Sugar.  I was 4 ½ years old.

How could I remember that date so clearly? Well, my dear Aunt had taken my cousin Billy and myself to the polling station where the election was being held.  It was Kennedy and Nixon on the ballot.

Really I don’t know who started it but Billy and I started going back and forth, while we were with my Aunt Sugar inside the drawn curtain of the voting booth. At first quietly and then quickly escalating to shouts, we kept repeating Kennedy no Nixon, Nixon, Kennedy!!!. Eventually shouts morphed into shoves and shoves turned into a tussle.  We knocked over the election booth.  It was just a three sided curtain atop a folding table, but boy was my aunt pissed.  If you need to guess, you don’t know me.  I was the Kennedy supporter.

So right now the list goes like this:

1956- Born during a thunderstorm in Salem Memorial Hospital.
1957-
1958-
1959-
1960- Got my assed whupped for my damn liberal leanings.

Over the next few days I will be filing in the years as best I can.  This should be interesting.