Behka’s Links: Awesome Parents

Kids, today on the Links section I thought I'd tell you about one of my favorite picture sites.

First of all, let's get it out of the way:  yes, that's me.  My dad is holding me on the front porch of someone's house in probably late 1979 or early 1980. I chose that picture in the same theme of today's post.

Here in Sedalia, we have many people who have lived here all their lives and have done so for generations. I know a fond pastime of our family was to go over the old photo albums, find pictures in shoeboxes, and look at all the memories of years ago. Sometimes we knew who they were - sometimes we didn't. Sometimes they were very funny pictures, sometimes they were confusing and sometimes they were sad. But they were all evocative, very interesting images. It was always something I enjoyed, to go and look at each photo, trying to imagine what the day was like in it, what they did before and after, what they thought when they got the picture back.

This leads me to one of my favorites, which I think everyone can understand: My Parents Were Awesome.

The idea behind the website is that people submit older photos of their parents or family members, before the submitter was born. The main drive of the site is stated as such:

Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome.

It's very easy to get lost on this kind of website for hours and hours, looking at the people and places. You pretty much only know their name, maybe a year it was taken, and the rest is up to you to wonder about, I suppose.

Here's an example.

This is Bob.  His photo was submitted by Carly (I'm assuming his daughter).  Bob looks like a carefree, nature loving hippie type.  He's just sitting there in the tree, living life right.  He's out in the woods with someone else and a big dog, and it just leaves so many unanswered questions for me.  Where are they? When was this?  Why were they out in the woods?  What's the dog's name?  Does Bob spend a lot of time in trees?  How long did it take for him to grow that sweet beard?  Does he listen to Foghat?

Anyway, it's a fun site, and you can even join in by submitting your own old photos.  Check it out when you have an hour or so to kill, because once you get sucked in, I promise you'll be looking at photos at least for that long.

Awesomely yours,
Behka