1967

1967 was a year of change for me. My father left the Army to begin his career at the hospital in Cooperstown. My parents had purchased an old farmhouse with 100 acres of land.

At the end of that first summer there, my parents had each of their children sit for a portrait.

Here’s my younger brother who was 3 years old at the time.

This is me posing. It looks like I’m kicking the chair that the artist is using to balance her drawing board on. That doesn’t surprise me.

My middle brother is waiting his turn. I’m guessing we posed youngest to oldest.

My parents must not have stayed around to take pictures of the two oldest kids posing for their portraits.

Those five portraits still hang in my parents house. I’m not sure what to do with them.

What does one do with old portraits?

My father had a portrait done of my mother when they were on one of their trips. It hangs in the living room. Honestly, I never liked it. To me, it doesn’t look like her. But two of my children have asked for that portrait. They see something there that I don’t.

I have a friend with an oil portrait of Benjamin Brandreth. It’s stored in a closet in an unused bedroom. Benjamin Brandreth was a mid-19th century pill salesman. He had made a vegetable pill that was a cure-all. Not quite snake oil, but along the same lines. I’ve suggested finding a historical society near where he lived in New York to see if they are interested in it.

Our president, you know, put a picture of an auto-pen where Biden’s portrait should go in the presidential gallery. He also moved a portrait of Obama to a less prominent place in the White House so it could be replaced by a picture of … guess who.

There’s a part of me that would like to see that man’s portraits purged once he is gone, but someone has to be a grown-up here. May his portrait hang in the appropriate place.

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This is my response to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: portrait.