Plague Journal, The Old Photo
Yesterday with a strong grip upon duty, tedious but necessary, I began moving the 2020 photo files from the flash memory chip in my camera to appropriately labeled folders in my laptop. The work entails several hours of peering at this laptop screen. Photo organization is important if there is to be a coherent archive for the future. As well, a clean chip is needed for the photos that I hope to capture this year 2021.
As I sorted and moved files I recognized that most were of Nature, especially of flowers in bloom. A blossom is the ideal subject, patiently posing in regal splendor before the lens. The second most numerous category were family pictures, especially those of the grandchildren. The camera lens freezes time, light activating electronic pixels to display what once was, and never again shall be. A memory of a past time is bitter sweet by definition.
When I engage this annual chore of organization, I examine photos that frankly I do not remember capturing. Was I not there? I just cannot remember. The photo triggers a flood of meaning, I finish my gaze reluctantly to move on with the work. This time it was a old 
photo of the Chi-town Hustler Dodge match racer. The race car was sponsored by Grand Spaulding Dodge located on Western Avenue in Chicago. I came to Oak Park in the fall of 1967 after graduating from High School. I remember walking past a car dealership on Western Avenue and seeing displayed on the brightly lit showroom floor, a magnificent, gleaming Dodge race car, the Chi-town Hustler. Later returning to that dealership I had a closer look at the exotic and powerful, custom built race car. I remember the oil stains on the showroom tile floor under the motor.
Many years have passed and I’ve been fortunate to spend much time at race tracks. Some of that time spent was close behind the starting line, camera in hand, feeling the thunder, catching the acrid stinging aroma of nitro-methane fuel and burnt rubber, … Much of “life-lived” is projected retrospectively onto the photo of that old Dodge race car.
Memory is a dynamic thing. Certain memories shimmer. I cannot be sure how much is accurate recollection. How much is a residue of what I have become as a result of my love of racing, of the acquaintances I’ve made at race tracks, and of one who remains a good friend, who constructed and campaigned a Ford Powered Top Fuel Dragster.
Moments in time change us, become a turning point, a vector along the path that we take, the story that we make. How much of me is the consequence of hot asphalt, motors built and tuned to thunder with excessive horsepower, and the sweet vision of a flashing green win-light at the finish line?
As I said those memories are bitter sweet. What one loves, times we all would have said, “life is good” — have receded into memory.
What we have is today, now. Shall we grasp the possibility today, of doing, of making something magnificent !?
