Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.
It has been a really long time since I participated in Sepia Saturday! The first photo to come to mind is one I posted a long time ago for another Sepia Saturday prompt. An unknown girl with an unknown dog. They are still unknown to me.
Mystery Girl and Dog
But it doesn’t seem right to simply post this photo again, so let’s see if I can go another round with the general theme.
When my mom’s brother, Albert (Al) Hoskins was approaching a milestone birthday, his wife sent out a request for memories. Mom included a story about a bicycle.
I apologize for riding off on your bicycle when you would come in after delivering your paper route. I guess I thought a chance to ride a bicycle (when it wasn’t in use and without permission) was a very special treat for me. I must have reasoned that if I to had ask I wouldn’t have been given permission.
After all those years, I guess Mom still felt guilty about making off with her brother’s bike. It sounds like it may have happened more than once, which makes me think Al didn’t blow up at her or get her into big trouble with their mother.
Here’s a photo of Mom with two of her brothers. Older brother Al on the left and younger brother Roy in the middle. I’m not sure how old Mom was when she made off with Al’s bicycle, but I would guess within a couple of years of this photo.
I recently had some old family films digitized and found a couple of clips of Mom riding bicycles. I haven’t mastered clipping and saving the moving pictures and uploading here, but I captured a still from one of them.
There’s Mom, breaking the rules again! Riding a bike in her Sunday clothes.
The kickstand is down in this still, but the film shows that she did, in fact, ride that bike across the yard in her heels and Sunday dress. I have no idea why. A little later in the movie, she had changed her clothes and took a spin down the street with my sister – pictured here. Maybe Kim had a new bike and Mom was encouraging her to ride. Or maybe Mom just felt that old urge to take off on a bike.
And just to bring things full circle, here is a shot of me with my bike in Great Bend, Kansas … in a Halloween mask? I have no clue about that costume.
Hop on your bicycle (or someone else’s) and ride over to Sepia Saturday to check out some other takes on the theme.
Great photos! Particularly the one of your mother. I just love it. The one with the unknown girl and the unknown dog is fabulous too.
Oh goodness the mystery girl and dog is just adorable, as are all the other photos as well! Fun post thanks.
Very nice. I think stories of pets (especially dogs) and bicycles are a universal thing. People in any part of the world will always have a favorite story to tell.
What a great return to Sepia Saturday. I love the fact that your Mum confessed to borrowing the bicicyle eventually.
Your blue bike looks almost like my one and only, except mine was a lighter shade of blue. It, too, had white sidewalls, a big front basket, and white handlebar grips. Mine also had a horn, red & green reflectors on the ends of those handlebar grips, and 3 gears? 🙂
Your mom seems to have broken one more rule — riding across the grass instead of on the roadway 🙂 A lovely post and photos, and that’s some basket on your bike in the last photo! Perhaps for Trick or Treating?
The photo of your mum reminded me of a comment I once saw that said something to the effect that Ginger Rogers was a better dancer than Fred Astaire because she could do the same dance backwards and in high heels.
The mask and costume bike shot is intriguing. There is a “Freddy” like scary aspect to the juxtaposition of the ordinary bike and the mask. Love the photo of your mother and her brothers,
Welcome Back Kathy X
The Quality of all these photos are superb.They each have a wonderful ,individual , feelto them! Top Notch.
Your Mum ,in the 2nd photograph, has a really cheeky look on her face!
The unknown girl and unknown dog are still classic! What a funny pose. I love your mom’s memory of making off with that bike without permission. Evidently she always felt naughty or guilty and had to come clean, even if it never bothered her brother at all. The story is a little window into her moral development, I suppose. What a gift!