I Can Smell Him In This Picture

I can smell the aroma of my Great Grandfather in this picture.  He does not always pop into my mind but when he does, it is brought on by a smell or a picture of yester years.  Yes, I was fortunate enough to have met my mother’s paternal Grandfather. He was already an old man when I met him.  He was headed back to fragile as I was growing out of it.  He smoked a pipe. His house had an abundance of pipe holders and I remember that being the main décor of design theme.  I remember the smell of his tobacco.   It was a sweet smell, not like a rank smelling cigar, but a pleasant sniff when you got a whiff of it in moderation. I automatically associate that smell with him.   The sound of an old typewriter, newspapers in a stack that had been read with some coffee stains on the corners where the cup had been placed.  He was 10 years old when the clock turned to 1900.  He lived at the end of an era that electronics had only begun to change the daily lives of us all.  He was loved by many yet spent the majority of his last years by himself. Most of the people he had spent his life with and shared experiences had long passed on with the exception of his own offspring.  Stories of the younger man before I met him float through my mind. There is no way to truly know someone when you meet them in the winter of their lives. We see a withering tree with falling leaves.  Time has covered up the spring buds, the summer storms and the autumn of contentment.  He has been gone for about 40 years now, so many things have changed. I do not believe he would like it here today.  He was not afraid of change, he was a man that welcomed new ideas.  This day and age is however… just too much.  I somehow get the feeling he would have been disappointed in how some things turned out.   For what it is worth Grandpa, I still have an old typewriter like the one in this picture and I keep it working because I like the sounds it makes. I have rocks glasses just like in the picture.  I store old letters from family and friends in old suitcases just like the one in the picture, I keep grounded with touchable things… just like in the picture.  I do not have an old working camera, but one thing they do make better now is image reproduction.  It is instant recall now, no waiting, no developing.  Who would have thought… You were happy with a radio. I can’t begin to tell you what is here now. You would have thought it was from a Dick Tracy cartoon coming to fruition and in a way it is.  Technology can be fun and wonderful, yet… I miss your way of life Grandpa.  The pure simplicity of it makes me homesick for a time that I was not even born into.  Your memories and your lifestyle may be gone, but the memory of you lives on.  Thank you for living long enough to be an influence to me, your grand children and your kids.  … Time to read the paper, it’s on line ummm yeah.. I gotta boot up first. Nothing to do with shoes and no that is a cd drive not a cup holder.   

 Tune it or die.