Lately, it seems I've been looking at a lot of pictures. We've been going threw Mom's stuff, and one thing I had never really paid much attention to is that she loved to take pictures.

 I mean, a lot of them. If you took the time to you could almost stack them together and as you let them flip by in your hand you could almost see the progression of my life from birth ’till the last one she took.

 Almost like one of those old picture shows you see sometimes on the History Channel when they are showing pictures from the early years of photography. Some pictures, well they’re kinda cute, and then again there's a few, ain't nobody seeing.

 But as I look at them, it can't help but bring back memories of days past, that I had completely forgotten about.

That's like when Daddy had black hair, in my mind's eye he was always gray headed, but there we are together, and while his hair line was receding, there was still plenty of color there.

And there's plenty of pictures of me and other kids, but the only problem is, I haven't a clue who they are. That's one of the problems of not having gone to school your whole life in a small town.

We moved so much when Dad was in the Air Force, all the kids I went to school with back then have all faded together. I remember some of the faces, but the names, it's like a blackboard that's half cleaned — you can see the words, but you just can't make them out.

 And I hate that. And as I was looking at them the other night, I couldn't help but wonder where they're at now, or even if they’re still with us. Did they marry, have kids, whatever happened to them? I guess I'll never know.

And there are plenty of pictures of Mom and Dad when —  I guess the only way to say it is — they weren't Mom and Dad. Mom back in high school, Dad when he was just Archie. Got one of him sleeping on a bunk in the barracks, don't know why they took that one.

Then there's Mom. I saw one of her and some friends sitting around, with some guy with his arm around Mom, Daddy sure wouldn't have liked that one.

Then I saw another one, I don't know who it was from, but I do know it was from the Korean War. Five guys standing around an armored car, the caption on the back said this was what they were gonna use if they had to move out if the North Koreans came back down from the north. As I looked at those guys, I couldn't help but wonder if this was the last picture ever taken of them.

 And there's more then that. There's pictures of Aunt's and Uncles, I had to look twice just to make sure that one of them was Uncle Hayward, man, he was little back then. He looked like he might have been a hundred pounds, if he had a brick in each pocket. And then there's plenty of my cousins, from the time they were little, all the way through school. Those fifties and sixties haircuts were SOMETHING else. Even found two pictures of my cousins when they were cheerleaders. The uniforms, they have DEFINITELY changed!

I even found all three of us boy's prom pictures. I can't believe we actually rented those tux's back then. These days we wouldn't be caught dead in those get ups, but we were cool back then, or at least we thought we were.

But the thing about it is, I have never been one to like to have my picture taken. In fact if at all possible I avoid it. If it wasn't my glasses, being crooked, it was my hair. Back when I had hair, it was so bushy, I couldn't do anything with it. It was always something. That's like the picture beside my column, Mel says it hardly looks a thing like me. I tell her it helps me walk among my adoring fans with total anonymity. That's when she tells me I 'm full of it.

But as much as I hate picture's, I'm so glad my Mother did. For you see, the pictures she took, they're like a book to me, the book of my life.

 And even though I know what's in the book, there are so many pages in my life that would have been blank, if she hadn't taken the time to record the events on film. So many things that would have been lost to the sands of time, but now I hold the proof in my hands, and the mist that comes with age, clears with each photograph.

And for that, I'm forever grateful.