Sometimes you want to go WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME

This weeks Sepia Saturday, for me, is men at their gathering places. Places where they spit and shoot the breeze. Where they can scratch and not need explain why. I give you two images from my book Tattered and Lost: Telling Stories. 

I can't help but think of the theme song from the tv show Cheers:

Making your way in the world today takes everything you'vegot. Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo

Why is this WOMAN SO HAPPY?

Could it be because Spring has arrived?

Or does she see the folks from Publisher's Clearing House walking up the sidewalk?

Or is it because she just felt some snow go down the back of her neck from a stray snowball?

Click on images to see them larger.




Written on the back:

Dude Mabel & I in front of 

our rooming house, the other 

boys are snow balling on the porch

Why is this WOMAN SO HAPPY?

The GHOSTLY PIANO PLAYER in the Little Family Album

The final image in the little album which once belonged to Gertrude Helen Rich Bowen.

A near ghostly figure playing the piano while the photo of the patriarch of the family looks down from above. I don't know if this is Gertrude or Frances, but this is the end of this visual story. There are no more.

The GHOSTS IN THE LITTLE FAMILY ALBUM: Beau or Brother?

There's no information about this fellow. His photos is on a page with the various photos of women in hats. Gertrude married a man with the last name of Bowen, so perhaps this is him.

The GHOSTS IN THE LITTLE FAMILY ALBUM: Gertrude with Friend?

Is the woman on the left Gertrude? Seems plausible, but we'll never know for sure. As to the woman on the right...well she just looks so much like my friend that I'll have to talk to her about possible time traveling that she never mentioned.

The GHOSTS IN THE LITTLE FAMILY ALBUM: Gertrude with Mother

If you look at the very first post of this series you'll see an elderly woman seated in the foreground. I'm guessing that was mother Rich. I believe Gertrude stands behind the woman with the tie on. If this is indeed the case, we then have Gertrude with her mother in this photograph.


Click on image to see it larger.

The GHOSTS IN THE LITTLE FAMILY ALBUM: Frances Rich Cheney and Friend

Frances (Rich) Cheney is the woman on the right. I don't know if she was a sister or an aunt to Gertrude.


Click on image to see it larger.

A couple of fine hats. Imagine the boxes they kept them in. I mean, you'd need something to store it in because you certainly don't want to have to dust these things or try to get spiders out of the folds in the bows. I know, spiders on the heads...could have gone all day without saying that.

Click in the labels section for "Frances" see photos of her on her homestead.

Only four images left to see from this little family album.