The discovery of a long forgotten external hard drive Friday night sent me down a rabbit hole.
It is full of pictures that I don’t even recall making along with some that seem like yesterday. Most were from a period where I was transitioning from film to digital and I was still a reporter so it was a real mixed bag of parades, picnics, scenic places and stuff around the house. My favorites, though were of people who are no longer with us.
One series shows my uncle with some baby raccoons he raised and released. I don’t recall the backstory but their mother was dead and they were too small to fend for themselves. He was careful to not let them become too dependent and to release them when they were big enough.
He was a good man.
And his wife who died just a couple of years after him.
They were both young when they passed and we sure do miss them. His super power was diffusing bad situations with humor and hers was making everyone feel comfortable and wanted no matter what. The world could use more people like them these days.
These discoveries were not only fun they were an important reminder of why we make pictures in the first place. It isn’t to create images of perfection like you see in highly edited pictures on Instagram. It’s to remember the small details, daily life and the important people another day.
How fun that must have been to dig through those old files 🙂 And a good reminder of why we take pictures at the end – well put!
Thank you! It never hurts to remind ourselves of that. And yes, it was much fun. I will look more closely at some of the folders soon.
I’ll bet it was such a sweet memory to see these dear relations again as you had pictured them then. I’ll admit to falling in love with that raccoon in the first photo. Adorable!
It was a fun surprise to find all those photos. And the raccoons were just adorable. This was just before he took them back to where he rescued them. 🙂
They sound like two great people – hand raising baby raccoons, how awesome is that?
I love looking back through old photos, I must have hundreds of thousands of Digi and film photos going back 20 odd years – they’re all little windows in time.
Yes! Looking back through old photos is like time travel. It can help you remember things you had all but forgotten. It’s a real treat.
And they were both wonderful people. He was so proud of those little raccoons but he was careful to not let them get too tame and to release them where he found them.
It sounds like he knew what he was doing in that regard – they were lucky he found them. Top Man!
My understanding is that he had done it before so he had some experience. 🙂
What a great thing to know how to do! I’ve always had a lot of respect for people that go out of their way to help animals.
Me too. He was a good guy.