I have a photo of my two older sisters and two younger brothers and I, sitting on a bench seat in the back of a big boat, as we headed out from our little fishing resort on the Rainy River , in northern Minnesota , to the lake. Several years ago, I made 8×10 copies of the photo and had one framed for each sibling, and have one hanging on the wall in my home. I looked closely at the photo this week noticing things in the photo as suggested in the book, The Power of Personal Storytelling, by Jack Maguire. I noticed expressions, our body language, our clothes, as if seeing the photo from an outsider’s perspective. Where were we going? Which adults were with us? Did we seem happy to be there? Did we even like each other?
My youngest brother looks to be 2 years old or less, which puts me around 9 and my oldest sister at 12. Although we are all in close proximity, nobody arms encase another’s shoulders, nobody leans toward another in a gesture of love or excitement about being together on an outing to the lake. My little brother looks a bit uncomfortable or afraid, having to go sit in the back of the boat for the photo, yet my oldest sister sits stoically next to him with hands in her lap, holding a bottle of Coppertone suntan lotion.
It wasn’t called sunscreen back then and my sisters and I wanted that golden tan – there was no fear of melanoma or premature aging of our skin. And I loved the smell of it! The smell of Coppertone brings back a lot of memories, when I am fortunate enough to get a whiff of it on a passing tourist in Scottsdale .
We sit there in the boat, with hands clasped in our laps, except my other little brother, who holds a toy gun pointed squarely at his foot. I know there are rich stories here, about these 5 kids, growing up on that little fishing resort.
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