I went to another funeral today. That's now three this year. I guess all my friends parents and the elder people in my family are getting older, aren't they?
My Dad turns 81 on Friday, but I still don't think of him as terribly old, but goodness gracious, it is old. His grandmother on his mother's side lived to be 100. I have a big oval picture of her with her second husband in my office here, and they stare at me as I sit at my computer. It's a good thing they can't actually see what I'm doing some of the time!
The picture is a photograph that was painted to give it colour so that it looks like a portrait. I think they should have had a chat with the painter, because my great-grandmother's left hand has only three fingers and a thumb. Her wedding ring is on the middle finger of that hand. Sort of like the Simpsons. Of course, maybe she was missing a finger, like Clarence the one-fingered mechanic, but on a smaller scale. But you'd think someone who knew the woman would have told me that. She died a couple of years before I was born, I think. The picture/portrait is from 1910, I've been told.
I also have a picture of my great-grandmother bowing over my great-grandfather's fresh grave on the wall of my office. That one is from 1918 or somewhere thereabouts. I have a picture of the back of their gravestones from this summer in 'my pics'. That cemetary in Dunrea has grown since then. In the pic, there's a fence right behind the grave and a wheat or hay field. Now, there's a whole bunch more graves, including my grandparents'.
In addition, I have a picture of the General on the wall, who was my great-grandmother's brother (the woman bowing over her husband's grave in the other pic). He was a general in Tsarist Russia, but it was purely honourary. He had founded some sort of engineering university in Latvia, so the Tsar made him a general. The poor man disappeared during the Russian Revolution. In the photo, he looks extremely somber. Nasty, almost. But very noble. People should have smiled more often way back then. People should smile more often now, for that matter.
Say cheese everyone.
My Dad turns 81 on Friday, but I still don't think of him as terribly old, but goodness gracious, it is old. His grandmother on his mother's side lived to be 100. I have a big oval picture of her with her second husband in my office here, and they stare at me as I sit at my computer. It's a good thing they can't actually see what I'm doing some of the time!
The picture is a photograph that was painted to give it colour so that it looks like a portrait. I think they should have had a chat with the painter, because my great-grandmother's left hand has only three fingers and a thumb. Her wedding ring is on the middle finger of that hand. Sort of like the Simpsons. Of course, maybe she was missing a finger, like Clarence the one-fingered mechanic, but on a smaller scale. But you'd think someone who knew the woman would have told me that. She died a couple of years before I was born, I think. The picture/portrait is from 1910, I've been told.
I also have a picture of my great-grandmother bowing over my great-grandfather's fresh grave on the wall of my office. That one is from 1918 or somewhere thereabouts. I have a picture of the back of their gravestones from this summer in 'my pics'. That cemetary in Dunrea has grown since then. In the pic, there's a fence right behind the grave and a wheat or hay field. Now, there's a whole bunch more graves, including my grandparents'.
In addition, I have a picture of the General on the wall, who was my great-grandmother's brother (the woman bowing over her husband's grave in the other pic). He was a general in Tsarist Russia, but it was purely honourary. He had founded some sort of engineering university in Latvia, so the Tsar made him a general. The poor man disappeared during the Russian Revolution. In the photo, he looks extremely somber. Nasty, almost. But very noble. People should have smiled more often way back then. People should smile more often now, for that matter.
Say cheese everyone.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
katblue:
oh yeah i forgot...."Cheeeeeeeeeeeseeee."
katblue:
are you insinuating I havea weak brain?!? 