Greeting Card - PhotoTrice

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone,

As five or six year-old children we made Valentines cards using construction paper, glue and scissors. Sixty five years ago children made things with their hands. It was how we learned rudimentary manual skills so necessary in the lives of our parents and grandparents. Education is much more forward looking today than in the fifties.

This simple card is muscle memory transformed from paper into something digital. It is an attempt to be somewhat relevant in the present day. My natural demographic is out of step with the future. Today making things with your hands is unnecessary and even frowned upon as a waste of time.

A dubious advantage of age is the ability to interpret the present based upon life experience. I’m cursed by mechanical ability which is the result of the blessings of a visual mind. I can see the most intricate details of the physical world. This mind trick it is always mine to use.

Bowling for Santa

As a boy there was nothing more magical than the holiday season. Now having reached a certain age I remember those times with the warm glow of nostalgia.

My mother was the best baker I have ever known. She made fabulous cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, cookies and pies. My favorite was her fruit cake which was unlike any other I’ve experienced. The recipe was passed down from Dutch ancestors who are also very much a part of my Christmas memories. I dearly wish I had that recipe.

Those boyhood holidays were a rich blend of old world and American traditions celebrated by relatives speaking Dutch and English often in the same sentence. All utterly gone now and greatly missed.
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The Santa Profile

These days you can’t be too careful about trusting your holiday good wishes to just any elf that comes along. Is he the real deal? When in doubt it is always best to consult experts. Otherwise that jolly old gent might just turn out to be a porch pirate in disguise.

Being a child of the twentieth century sometimes my attitudes are a little out of the current mainstream. One area that bothers me is widespread surveillance of individuals and invasive cataloging of personal information. Perhaps I just need to go along and get along.