The passing of loved ones, whether it be parents, children or siblings, creates a need for us to "look back" in our mind's eye to conjure up sufficient memories to soothe us for the moment. Sometimes we are able to do a bit better by pulling out a photo album or digging through that box that has photos which had never quite made it to an album but you just couldn't throw them away.

Another thought of mine goes back probably twenty years when a friend of mine said his parents didn't leave any tracks of their existence. That is not the case with either of our parents but it certainly is a sad state of non-existence if that is the case with your family.

Even during hard times like the years of the Great Depression and the years shortly after, people found the few cents required to "take a snapshot" or even spend a few hard-earned dollars to go the professional photographic studio downtown and get a real portrait. My wife and I were born in 1932 which is about three years into the depression and it surprised us to find a precious photo of my wife standing at the end of a little building her father built for them to live in until their more adequate house was built.

My parents did not seem to be in the same financial straits that my wife's parents experienced because in addition to a photo album stuffed with snap shots we still have a few pictures where you got " all dressed up" and had a real photo made, you know the kind, where the photo is mounted in a decorated easel style folder you would see on mantels, bureaus or tables. Perhaps the exact reasons such photos were bought will never be known but suffice it to say it's good those photos were acquired. Recently we came across a photo of my wife and her brother when they were around eight and three years of age. The first thing we thought was her parents spending that kind of money because it would have been considered a luxury.

Whatever the reasons photos were taken, their very presence is proof that, even if money had to be put aside for a few weeks or maybe even put the expense on a charge tab, some kind of value was realized by leaving photographic tracks (or images). What is really sad and disappointing to descendants is to find pages of albums filled with people without any names - and no one is alive to help identify them.

True, trips down memory lane can be made in our minds but isn't it nice to physically look at photos "way back when they or we were kids" or when our parents got married and kids were only a gleam in their father's eyes.

Today's digital cameras have nearly brought the professional photo studio into your kitchen or living room table. And really, this has only happened during the last few years because only the wealthy could afford a digital cameras. The inexpensive digital cameras today, and the computer programs to crop, size and group pictures make preserving pictures as easy as taking the pictures - well, with the help of older grandchildren maybe! And we must not forget the cell phones with cameras!

A strange announcement was found in our newspaper about a photographic business shutting down and they wanted the public to stop by and look at photographs that were never picked up. It appears they have a bunch of them and they want to give people a chance to come in and look over these photos and simply take them (at no charge). They're hoping the photos will be appreciated by friends or relatives of people who never came to pick up their pictures. Whatever they have left will simply be trashed. When I heard this I recalled an incidence of several years ago when another photo studio closed after being in business over 75 years and they had a large quantity of glass negatives that were simply trashed! My, what personal photographic records were simply lost because someone did not place any value in that old-time method of printing photos from glass slides.

I have attended many auctions or sales where a box of albums are often on the tables, as well as professional studio photos. No one cared or had any interest in keeping or sending these photos on to descendants. Probably twenty years ago my wife saw two very large oval picture frames with photos of a local couple and bought them sheerly because of the frames. Years ago my wife's own family made the decision to trash many old large picture frames but they saved the photos which were, for the most part, photos that had been re-touched with charcoal techniques. It is not a simple matter to save or store such prints either and silverfish can cause damage to such photos stored carelessly. But some in today's society seem to say, "Who cares?"

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TAKE A PICTURE TODAY -- and leave tracks. But don't forget to identify the people in the photo! THE WORDWRIGHT