Open to pain and crossed by the rain

My grandmother on my dad’s side left me the family photo album after she passed away. It’s been sitting in a box for a few years, and I’ve decided, as this blog is purportedly a testament to what has gone before in my life, to pick some of those that are most representative to showcase for my stated purpose of “Farther On.”

Given how mementos if not memories have disappeared from the combined Lockard/Warburton household, this is priceless stuff to me, and it is well past time to get it documented. So this is the first in a series that I will be sprinkling into my posts.

While we obviously had a camera in our family, there are precious few photos of my immediate family. This is the only known photo of the four Lockards as a unit from Grace Ave. in Shavertown, Pa. There are several others that contain all of us, but other family members have wandered into the frames.

This was taken in front of my paternal grandparents farmhouse in Huntersville, Pa. I imagine my grandmother (Orpha, the one who had the photo album) took the photo, and probably snapped it with a Kodak Instamatic. She must have literally been standing in the road when the photo was taken, as the front door of the house was only about 10-12 feet from the winding road that was Route 87.

By this time, my grandfather (Pappy, we called him), would be retired from farming and walking with two canes, severely crippled from arthritis. That is mostly how I remember him, moving about in such a labored manner from the kitchen through a storage room to wait on customers in a general store that was attached to their home. Pictures of that are forthcoming.

This photo finds us in summer with open upstairs bedroom windows. It could be stifling in the big old place as circulating air was hard to come by. The gutters need attention and the house looks like it needs a paint job as well; funny, in my memories the Lockard homestead at the corner of Dutchtown Road is sparkling, up-to-date and ready for the long haul. Just the way I thought of my family at the time of this photo.

My dad looks distressed about something (which was mostly unlike him then) and my mom is hidden, which is not surprising given her aversion to the camera. I am about four, which makes my brother around 14. And indeed, this is my family’s regular summer attire: No shorts (except me) and my mom in a dress.

In about 10 years or so, this unit would be blown up, and that look on my dad’s face would be very common. My mom would be gone, my brother would live 1200 miles away in Florida, and my dad and I would be muddling through on our own.