I have told this story many times, I often go to Antique Stores, garage sales and thrift stores in search of black and white photos of complete strangers. I like the idea of "rescuing" someone's memory from complete obscurity by purchasing the picture and then giving it an identity based on my observation.
My patient wife has spent countless hours watching me look at stacks of these photos. She doesn't care for antique stores much, but she humors me because she loves me. (I'm very lucky). She has picked up a thing or two over the years that we have been searching for stories. She knows that if I pause more than 2 seconds on a photo there's a chance that I am seeing something that intrigues me. If I set the photo down and then go back to it, in her words "it's speaking to me". She has also learned that if we get to that place in the search to just simply take the photo from me and hang on to it. Otherwise, I will talk myself out of purchasing it. This sort of discipline is needed as when I go to antique stores alone, I will indeed reason with myself that it's too expensive and put the photo back only to regret it for weeks later.
Below is a photo of a young boy playing in the sand box. I don't know anything about him. Don't even remember where I bought it from. What I do have is the thoughts that immediately began to form in my mind. I typed the poem on a sheet of paper and felt it was right. This is the original rough draft and I just decided that I would leave it as is, typos and all.
He was singing a sad, slow ballad....
