Some are travelers. Some are foodies. Some are movie freaks. And some are collectors.
I was visiting family this past weekend, and was dying to go in the garage, which I knew was packed like tetris with collectables. The light was streaming in a dusty window, the sill lined with various cola bottles. The dust danced, and continued to settle on the restored Chevrolet truck parked in the middle of it all. There is a different energy with those older items, as if they have a memory from all the lives and hands that nurtured them along the way. It is calm in here. Behind the truck lay bikes. Many bikes. All old, all with their own character. Can you imagine the stories they could tell! I envisioned my grandfather, camera slung over his shoulder, riding along a road that would lead him to his photo for the day. Because he always had a goal: a train or a ship or a street he wanted to record and file away... I wish I could be riding alongside him. I think of him a lot.
This post was originally about my uncle, a collector. But now I realize that my grandfather was also a collector, a collector of images. I laugh aloud as I remember the many filing cabinets filled with his passion of his family and places and ships and trains. Thousands upon thousands of 8x10 photographic prints! He was the biggest collector of us all! And what a gift he has left us. Until now, I felt I didn't really have the opportunity to know who he was, but I realize in this moment he is waiting for me in his photos.
I look forward to knowing him.
