Happy New Year: Looking back, looking about… but no looking ahead just yet

A couple months ago when my Uncle Mike (my dad’s younger brother) passed, his family displayed various photos at the service of my uncle and his brothers from their younger years.  I was greatly surprised when I saw the one above of my own dad, as I’ve never seen a photo of him this young before.

That’s Dad on the left of course, looking 6-7 years old from 1943.  Knowing I had a photo of myself at around the same age in 1967, I thought I’d do a side by side (like I’ve done of Dad & myself before, here).  I find it hard to believe these two photos are only 24 years apart.

What I mean is, I’m betting our family wasn’t any wealthier than Dad’s was in the 1940s; but I think in the 1960s there was a greater emphasis placed on the look of success.  I remember the story behnd this suit on the right quite well; my mom was so upset with my ‘hobo look’ in my first grade school photos, she said never again and picked out these nifty threads from the 1967 Sears catalog. 

Thanks to Google, I was able to look up my suit and the price was $11.99, shirt & tie included (around $90.00 in today’s dollars).  I got some good use out of that suit (much to my mom’s delight) as my second grade teacher Mrs. Brown had a thing for us kids dressing up a couple times that year.  And in the last week of school, our entire class came to her home for a ‘hot lunch’, girls in dresses, boys in ties. 

Mrs. Brown had a son three years older than myself, also named Doug which intrigued me; I’d never met another Doug before.  I remember asking him if I could see his room—he said yes—and asking him if he wanted to be friends.  He said no.  Oh well!

Meanwhile in the present, my tmj has put a real damper on things, my blog writing included.  I swear, I’m not looking for sympathy or attention—I just want it to be over.  It’s put a halt to things in my life (like going to the senior center) and I’m left with little energy to do anything except apply hot & cold compresses, stare at the tv and wait for things to get better.

I had this three times before—the first was in July 2016, lasting seven months.  At the time I had no idea what it was, and wound up spending $3000 on specialists and various oral appliances, all of which did no good.   My second bout was a year later and only lasted 6 weeks.  My third was horrendous, and went on for over two years.

So far it’s been two weeks and I’m hoping (as I’m sure it was ‘woken up’ by my recent battle with covid) it fades as quickly as it surfaced.  Thanks for letting me share and on that note…

Happy New Year Everyone