Wednesday, November 16, 2011

another yearbook quote

I found this today while looking through some images. From a middle school yearbook from 1977 someone wrote:

I hope you get hit by a car and get spread over a 50ft area of pavement and they have to scrape up your guts with a putty knife. Let's have a good year!
Your friend
Rex

P.S. Should I?
Should he what? That's what I want to know. Who knows what he was talking about...

Another yearbook from around the same time, and it belonged to a girl. All of the messages written inside started with the phrase "I don't know you very well." Which kinda made me feel sad for her. Why did she get all these semi strangers to sign her book?

This makes me wonder, since most of these books are on loan, how did these people lose their yearbooks? Did they donate them to a library or archive? Why would you give up a yearbook? Interesting. 

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

year books

At work we are finishing up a big year book project. We scan and photograph yearbooks for genealogical purposes. Big project. Lots of yearbooks dating back over a hundred years. After we import all those images we have to QA each book.

While I was looking through some of the images, it becomes obvious that many of these books once belonged to someone. I can read the short messages people write to their friends. Most of it is the same stuff that you see written down all the time: "Thanks for being a friend. Have a good summer. etc. etc." I've found some long and heartfelt letters between people in serious relationships. One yearbook around 1942 said something like "Strange how this war is tearing our world apart. Victory is in sight, and after everything is over we'll have to get back together again." Serious stuff. If I have time, I try and track down the photo of the owner of the book... Kinda makes all those little notes fit into some sort of context.

I've even found old photos tucked into some of the books. For example: I was taking photos of a very old yearbook from around 1917-1918 and I found a tiny photo of a man dressed in a military uniform. I couldn't tell if that person was one of students from the yearbook, but I assumed it was. On the back was scribbled in fountain pen "Give this to Eleanor". Maybe the book belonged to Eleanor. Who knows.

These brief messages in time are all that are left of some of these people. I'm sure many of them are long dead and forgotten. Who knows what else I'll find?

Monday, November 7, 2011

code talker

My son almost talks. Not really though. It's more of an energetic babble. He's only about 16 months old, so I don't know when he'll start forming sentences like "I need more money dad." or "can I borrow the keys to the car?".

I keep wondering when will be a good time to introduce him to movies, music, and video games. I don't know how "involved" a parent I should be when forcing awesome stuff down his throat. I liked some of the stuff my dad likes, but I ended up figuring it all out on my own. Who knows. I guess we'll see in time.