The Anti-Don Draper Story

I have slowing been scanning the nearly 1000 35mm slides my father took throughout his slide taking career. And in one sense these from the 250 slide marker are less emotionally rewarding. The 1964 trip to California took us by the Grand Canyon there there are dozens of landscape pictures. But what is the most fun is pictures of people, maybe in funny costumes. But I am sure at the time my dad felt it important to take pictures of these majestic rock formations.

But I am struck by the the picture above. I think it is packed full of meaning, both personal and sociological.

From 1964, my dad is taking a picture of his family where my mother taking a picture of the two children, posed in front of a natural wonder that took millions of years to develop.

I am certain my father did not appreciate the "meta" aspect of him capturing my mother taking this picture. But in a simpler consideration it is one of the few really natural pictures there is of our family. Even though my mother staged it, the fact that he is taking a picture of the setup is very cool.

You plop two baby boomer kids in front of sight with a geologic scale, and a picture of a picture by a couple who rode the post WWII economic wave yet both came from inauspicious economic upbringing.

That is the basis for mutli-genarational novel or the measuring stick of a mid century sociology text.