A photograph I saw made me think of summer reading at the Maud Burrus Library. When I was a child I remember going to the library in the summer and looking longingly through the stacks of books for children, trying to discover which ones were the ones I could check out. I read books about sports, adventure, and mystery. I loved Hardy boy books and many were loaned to me by my friend Philip Mattox. He would loan me 10 or 15 at a time and I would devour them, trying to figure out the mystery before Frank and Joe Hardy did it for me. I remember that the books were a dollar to buy in the store and I only ever bought 2 or 3 because of the cost. My allowance growing up was $.50 a week, and I had to tithe, $.05 to the church each week, so I only cleared $1.80 a month. So a whole dollar for a book was too much except for the rare occasion. I remember other kids saying that they got $10 for every A on their report card or that their grandmother gave them money for Christmas or a birthday. I can't remember anyone ever giving me any money.

I loved the summer reading club at Maud Burrus. You logged the number of pages you read throughout the summer. My sister and I read thousands of pages.

I have loved photographs since I was young too. I got a little gray camera when I was ten or eleven. It was a big deal to take a photo because there were only 11 or 12 shots on a roll I think. 12 black and white pictures. They were out of focus at best and sometimes came back mysteriously white or grayish. Since it cost several dollars to get prints and more film, photography was a rare thing. On Easter, when we all had new clothes to wear to church, Dad might take our picture. We might see those pictures some months later, maybe in the late summer or early autumn, when the roll of film was finally completed and went to be developed. Developing took awhile--a week, ten days, or two weeks. If you dropped the film off on a Tuesday and the film pickup was on Monday ("Sorry, you just missed the pick up man."), your film cannister just sat in the store for a whole week. Then we might go back to the store and they would look through the envelopes and shake their heads and say, "Nope. They aren't back yet." Another week would pass and we'd try again. Usually we had forgotten what photos were on a roll of film long before we got it developed, so there were some nice surprises when we opened the package. Also some great disappointments, odd colors, closed eyes, or harsh expressions of us squinting into the sunshine. A photo of the family squinting into the sun seemed to be my dad's favorite shot.

There are drawbacks to digital photography. But not many.

My son grew his beard for a play. He cut it off the next day. I did not. A day earlier Mrs. G took this photo of me with a former student. I taught her for a couple of years--her senior year of highschool and I think sophomore year of college. She needed encouragement and was thinking about dropping out. Now she is Metropolitan Opera Soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird. How nice to know her.