I honestly don't know why I dwell on stuff like this. What is it about this photograph? This is actually a postcard, a Real Picture Postcard (RPPC), with a handwritten message on back dated May 12th, 1911, in Watertown, South Dakota. The sender (we assume the person in the picture) was sending this to his cousin, most likely included in an envelope with a more formal correspondence. This was never mailed.
So I look at this, and he reminds me a little of my son. His age when this picture was taken is about the age my son is now. He looks like he's tall, tho it's hard to say. My son is tall. He's not a physical double for my son by any means, but there is something about him that is a reminder.
He was photographed and wrote a message in 1911. I'd say he was born in the late 1880s or very early 1890s. He is young, looks to be in good health, physically strong, and he has nice clothes, in what was a much more formal era. I know nothing about him, not even his name - the person he was writing to was obviously very familiar to him. But I do know that 98 years 11 months and 2 weeks after he wrote this message on the back of his picture, he is no longer living, but yet he has me looking at his image and thinking about it.
If he had a normal lifespan, if he survived WWI, it is possible our lives overlapped. It is not inconceivable that he would have lived into the 1970s. Had we met he would have been very old, and I would have been very young. I would have looked at him and thought he had always been old, that he was born that way. I would have thought, this is the way it is, the way it was, and the way it always will be. I know better now.
I guess it all boils down to a mortality thing. It's a reminder that people who are old and weak, or even have already died, were once young and strong, with optomism and hope. They burned away their days as if they had an infinite supply. I see myself and everybody I know in this picture.
So, I'm going to list this card on eBay - I scheduled it earlier today, it should be there soon. You're welcome to it if you want it. Just go to the store & do a search on Watertown.
