WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW?
Lee Trevino used a band-aid. But what am I gonna do now?
Some time ago my wife found an old 3 x 5 black and white photo. It was a picture of her taken by her mother on the porch of their house in our home town. The picture supposedly was taken just a few minutes before I came to pick her up for our first date, July of 1962. I can verify that the dress she has on in the picture was the dress she wore on our first date. Also, that her hair was fixed in that style. Who says men don’t remember? Cut me some slack.
I really liked the picture, so I had it enlarged into a 5 x 7, had the picture sealed, and placed it on the glove compartment door/dash of my 1965 Corvette. Needless to say, over time it has created a lot of conversation when people look inside my car. “Oh, that is a picture of my wife taken on the night of our first date.”
Last month our fifteen-year-old granddaughter, Sloan, was staying with us. When she got in the Corvette and saw the picture, she asked, “Is that Mimi?” I confirmed and then gave her the standard history line about when the picture was taken, first date, etc. Then Sloan said to me, “Oh is that your class ring she is wearing?” “What?” I said. “No, she wasn’t wearing my class ring. This was our first date, and anyway I was in college and would not have given some girl a high school class ring.” “Well, if you look closely at the picture you can see that Mimi is wearing a class ring.” Oh my, as I studied the picture very closely, I could see that Sloan was right, ol’ Mimi has on “somebody’s” class ring. (If you are from that time you remember the class rings and all the wrappings, etc)
Well now, what am I going to do about this picture? You can’t put a band-aid on a picture. About this time you might be asking what does this story have to do with Lee Trevino. At one time Trevino had the name of his first wife tattooed on his forearm. Later they divorced and he was stuck with her name on his arm. He didn’t want his picture appearing with her name on his arm for all the golf galleries to see. What did he do? Each day before beginning play he put a band-aid over the name.
Well, I can’t put a band-aid on the picture where the ring is showing on her hand. Do I take it to a photo lab and ask them to brush it out? What about “white out?” What to do? I did nothing other than what I have been doing since I put the picture in my car. I looked at the picture and smile. This new observation by our granddaughter does nothing to change the matter.
Now, all this is silly, but I do have a point. I have seen people who upon learning something new relating to their past or the past of someone else, but having no relevance on the present, make the new information an issue. Many things that have happened in the past are just that, and they should be left there, especially if they don’t have any bearing on the present. Let the past be just that, the past. The picture remains one of my favorites and now I smile an even bigger smile when I look at it.