A Powerless Day

Responding to yesterday’s power outages produced the usual coping strategies at our house: haul and set up the generators to the house and barn to keep food safe, start up the wood stove, use only small portions of the emergency bottled water for hand washing and don’t flush unless you really need to. Our well pump requires power and that means the only water available for refilling the toilet tanks comes from the livestock water troughs or pond—both quite a hike away from the house. Toward evening we get the oil lamp and candles ready and Uncle Grumpy fires up the grill to rustle up a pioneer dinner. Amazing how a single oil lamp set on the kitchen table will light the room well enough for reading or writing letters.

Turns out we had power restored within about 15 hours, which is pretty good for our location in a semi-rural area. Best of all, most of those hours fell in the middle of the night and throughout the next day so there was ample light to get things done. The winds were still powerful and reports of trees falling were all over the news so I chose to stay inside and conquer a dreaded task.

Following months of organizing and arranging family photos I had several family portraits left untouched. The more I looked at them the more jealous I became of their exquisite beauty because my own wedding pictures turned out truly hideous. These photos, in black/white or soft sepia, made the pictures look gallery-worthy. No tacky special effects involving candles, no close-ups of overlapping left hands—just brides and grooms telling the story of their love with their eyes and soft smiles.

They weren’t mine to keep, though, because they belonged to the daughters, grand-daughters and great-grandchildren of the bride and groom. So, I scanned them and mailed them. Easy right? Then, why had I put it off for so long?

Because...those knock-out portraits were securely attached to soft paper mats and frames, which meant they had to be shipped “as is.” There were no USPS paper mailers that fit the sizes, no flat rate boxes suitable and trips to several office supply stores did not prove helpful. I was planning to rip apart shipping boxes to re-create custom sizes when I came across this treasure in good o’ Walmart:

Cut in half lengthwise this tri-fold board was perfect for holding the two largest photos. Once the photos were wrapped in waterproof liners and taped to a sturdy inner board they were secured inside the cardboard and wrapped again with brown kraft paper (AKA cut up grocery bags). Overkill? Probably, but the wedding and other events took place in the mid 1930’s. Wouldn’t you want them to arrive dry and non-creased?

To keep my motivation up I did the tricky, big photos first and then the smaller ones that simply slid into large envelopes. The trip to the post office was easy because it wasn’t crowded and the experienced postal clerk was chatty and informative. That type of thing happens all the time in the South, or at least at the post offices in RVA.

One package of photos is headed to my cousin, who is experiencing the slow loss of a beloved family member. It is my hope that this packet of family photos will be encouraging and remind her of her own lovely mom, who looked so sweet in the priceless photo of her own special day.

And my “treasured memory” perk—my mom made the dress.