The antique photograph sits on the sturdy oak desk, worn and decrepit, I’m nervous to pick it up in fear that it will crumble between my fingers. I conquer fear and gently lift the yellowed photo from its resting place and study it, noting every detail. I see my ancestors dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing lined up in front of a coal burning train. They wear no smiles upon their serious faces. A wooden sign hovers above them reading Wilson’s Mercantile. I notice behind them a hitching post lined with horses. I laugh inwardly for only a second finding humor in the contrast of the past and present.
In reality it isn’t funny. This photograph that I hold in my hand is a snap shot of the past; it offers insight into another life, another time. Although simplistic the photograph has a profound effect on me. I begin to imagine what life must have been a hundred and something years ago.
It would not have been easy, but yet again life with technology is not easy either. In a world of instantaneous messaging and immediate information expectations have been raised. Bosses and teachers expect employees and student to use technology as resource. No longer does work stay at the office it comes home with employees. Students are stretched to their limits with an overabundance of homework and extra-curricular activities. No longer do families sit and eat dinner together. Instead, they pick up fast food before hurrying home only to labor over hours of work. Life has become tied to technology, and as a result, family life has suffered.
In my hands I hold a simpler time. A time uncluttered with conveniences, a time where people were not checking their phones every few seconds. A time where people worked with their hands to make dinner and didn’t just stop as the nearest McDonalds for dinner. A faded, forgotten time.
