Someday I’ll Have a Time Machine

The exciting news about this photo is that someday I’ll have a time machine. But for whatever reason, I’m going to travel back in time and somehow get into my Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding party.

Question …do you say “Grandpa and Grandma” or “Grandma and Grandpa?” Is there a right way to order those words  …like “salt and pepper” or “gin and tonic?”  Even though Billy Joel says “tonic and gin” in “Piano Man”, but I think that’s more so it rhymed with “crowd shuffles in.”  Does anyone say, “Dad and Mom?” No. Nobody says that. It’s always, “Mom and Dad.”

I love old photos. This one sorta amazes me. Yes, I understand genetics and how they work and that it would make sense that I look very similar to someone else in my family. But a spitting image?

When people tell other people they look like someone else, almost always it’s, “do you think so? Really? I don’t see it.” And usually, it’s only a resemblance.

This photo shows a guy that looks exactly like I looked at age 20ish.

Oh, right. The bride and groom are my Grandpa Phil and Grandma Lillian. This was the late 1930s (and I wish I knew the exact date). I wish I knew who my doppelganger was.

UPDATE:  Thanks to family-historian, my cousin Robin, this was 9/16/1939. Picture below. Coincidentally, this is also my sons birthday …the 9/16 part …not the 1939 part.

Which brings me to the next phase of my Blog …turning it into a family tree full of family stories. This is something I want to do for myself, but also for my kids …and their kids …and my cousins.

Recently a friend read my post about my Mom and her shirt-folding and messaged me about hoping to, someday, start to write about her late father but having only been grieving him for six months, still didn’t feel ready. That’s fine. She’ll find her time and her voice.

It was, however, a wake-up call. I wish I knew more about this wedding. About their courtship. What was a Polish wedding like in the late 1930s for a 2nd- and 1st-generation immigrant? What did my Grandpa do for work at that time? Did they have a honeymoon? How long had my Grandmother been in the U.S. at the time of this photo? Who is my doppelganger? Who are all those other people?

Matthew Dicks all but begs everyone to do Homework for Life and it’s really simple. Every day, real quickly, capture a memory. Eventually you can go back and write about it. It might be a great story you want to tell someday.

What I like about Homework for Life is this …memories won’t get lost. And memories do get lost. I don’t know what I ate on my wedding day. My sister, today, reminded me of an incident from her freshman year in college and I’m struggling to remember.

If I had written it down, like I did on my daughter’s first day, week, and month of college, I could transport back in time when I flip to that page in my journal.

It’s a “wow” thing and pictures are great, but stories are better. A picture is worth a thousand words. But a thousand words can spark one thousand memories.

Keep a journal. Write stuff down.

I know I’ll want to know what I’ll eventually think when I do have access to a time machine and I decide to go back to the 1930s and find my way into my grandparents’ wedding. Maybe it’s to make sure they get married and so my Dad will be born and then, eventually, I’ll be born.

I’ll bet that’s it.