A Strangers Life

I don't know this person. I have never met her. The only thing I know about her is that she is the mother of the wife of a collegue of Sam's. And she's having a birthday soon.

Sam, because he's Sam and he never imagines things will take very long at all, offered to scan some pictures to make a slide show for them to show at a birthday party. Shortly after promising this, he tore apart our previous computer set up to get his new computer running and now our capabilities are fairly crippled.

I have spent quite a bit of time, so far, getting various peices of equipment to run here and there and I have begun to scan the pictures and

I'm learning a lot about a strangers life.

Pictures of a young, beautiful woman at her wedding. It appears her husband was in one of the branches of the armed forces at the time (50's). Pictures of a big belly and a proud future daddy holding up new baby clothes. As the pictures change from black-and-white to Kodachrome, there are pictures of family gatherings, baby's first Christmas, a day at the beach. The modern color pictures show new babies and new families joining the clan and more family gatherings.

I suppose what strikes me about it all is that these happy faces, these special events, could belong to anyone. There's a story being told here that nearly anyone could call their own.