Old Time Photographers - Simple But Lasting Photos

Back in 1941, I was 8 years old and as I read Nat Worman's article in last night's St. Albans Messenger, realized how little I knew what was going on in the world at that time. The large photo above attracted my attention as I went to school down at the little brick school at the end of the Buck Hollow Road in Fairfield the last two years I was in Grade School with a couple of Bill Gaynor's children. Bill Gaynor owned the farm that Harold & Ann Howrigan now live on, on the Howrigan Road.

He was a hard working man, like most farmers of that day and made do with what little he had, just like the rest of the farmers in the neighborhood. One of the boys that I went to school with had diabetes, a disease I had never heard of and was on a special diet. The photo above is a scanned image from yesterday's St. Albans Messenger, but it is still a great photo as you look closely at it and see the expression in the man's face which tells a story, maybe to each viewer slightly different.

As I listened to the Channel 3 News later in the evening and the doom & gloom predicted by the Economists on the State Revenues and Shortfalls and saw the discouraged expressions on the faces of the legislators, I thought, if only one of those old time photographers was there to catch that moment, that picture might be one the children of today would be looking at when they are in their mid-70s and say as I did, "I had no idea things were that way when I was 8 years old."

When I graduated from High School in 1951, jobs were scarce and wages were low, but never in my life time have I ever seen what is such a gloomy forecast for the future. Businesses are laying off here in the local area and God only knows what will happen if any or all of the Big Automakers go belly-up. Hopefully my retirement is secure, while our young people see their retirement nest eggs dwindle. I know as we grow older we worry more and little problems seem like big problems.

Hopefully the powers to be in Government will take the right steps to heal the Economy, so that everyone will again feel a sense of security in their jobs and their personal future.