Take lots and lots of pictures

No question that technology has changed a lot over the years. When I was a kid my Dad had one of those old folding box cameras, but he did take a lot of pictures of us as kids. Those pictures are long gone now and I wish I had thought to scan them all before they were gone.

A big part of my life was my ten years in the band. Fans were always taking pictures of us, both on stage and with them at breaks, but today I don’t have a single picture of me over all those years. I was in the house band at the old Club Bluenote, backing up some very famous entertainers, yet I don’t have a single picture of those nine great months.

Over the twenty-three years I was married I owned all kinds of cameras, from instant cameras to decent digital ones, but I have but a handful of pictures of the kids and family. We did things like spend a week in Florida, going to Disneyland during our vacation and I don’t have a single picture of our holiday. We went to Expo 86 and spent three weeks traveling around BC and Alberta with my parents. Again, not a single picture.

During the fourteen years I spent in the Okanagan I was a little better at getting pictures. Things like Merritt Mountain, hiking, skiing, boating and lots of other things I did get pictures of, but what about all my friends and my dance partners at the Corral and so much more? They are all wonderful memories in my mind, but I have very few or no pictures of any of it. Countless hours spent dirt-biking, snowmobiling in the mountains, boating, hiking and so much more, not to mention family. My mother and father are both gone now and all I have is my few photos to remember them by. Now that they are gone I wish I had hundreds of photos of all the special moments we spent together over the years.

So, no matter what you do or who comes into your life, take lots and lots of pictures. You will never regret it, especially not when you grow old and have them to look back on to relive those wonderful memories. If you have kids make it a regular thing to “interview” them every birthday to watch them grow up. Record every special, and even not so special, moment in their lives. Encourage them to take lots of pictures of their own friends growing up. One day they will thank you.