"Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. . . it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything" - Aaron Sussman Select a photograph that captured a meaningful moment in time. What little things does it remind you of?

This black and white photo was recently sent to me by my cousin and I had never seen it before.  Although grainy and out-of-focus, it immediately captured my heart. I suddenly realized how rare it is because very few pictures were ever taken inside our house when I was growing up. I've never seen my mother operate a camera, and my dad liked taking pictures (usually slides) outside and on vacations, but seldom in the house. This was our galley-style, sunny kitchen in Farmington and the picture was obviously taken on a bright winter morning judging by my dad's turtleneck. My Uncle Max and Aunt Alyce must have been visiting from New Mexico since Marilyn had the picture.

My dad was the breakfast-maker in the family; bacon and eggs were his specialty on weekends or special occasions. This particular morning was probably considered a special occasion with my aunt and uncle visiting. He always made the eggs sunny side up. I think he's about to fry a batch of bacon here; the electric frying pan is out on the stove. Dad was the one to awaken my brother and me every morning and drive us to school. Oh, how I hated those cold Michigan winter mornings when he would enter my room and turn on my overhead bedroom light! But he was a great breakfast-maker, and I recall all those hearty bowls of hot cereal he made for us. He had a radio on the kitchen counter near the table, and on school mornings he had it tuned to WXYZ as he fixed breakfast. Once in awhile we'd get lucky on a winter morning and hear that school was canceled due to a snowstorm.

In true June Cleaver-like fashion, my mom always wore shirtwaist dresses and skirts in those days, just as she is in this picture. She usually wore half aprons that tied around her waist while she was in the kitchen, and it's hard to tell, but she may have an apron on over her skirt here. I'm thinking that might be a roll of biscuits in her hand, and she's getting them ready to put in the oven which is to the right of my dad. Funny story about that oven. Despite the fact that my dad was an electrician, it couldn't be turned on at the same time as the dryer without blowing a fuse. It's kind of like the story of the auto mechanic who didn't have time to fix his own car. Of course my mom would sometimes forget that fact, only to discover wet clothes and a cold dinner at the most inopportune times.

The door at the back of the room lead to the laundry room and garage. There was a window over the kitchen sink and a set of three floor-to-ceiling windows back on the left side by the kitchen table, all hung with blue and green plaid cafe-style curtains. Once in awhile at dinner time, Joy, my friend from next door, would come over to see if I could play and she'd peer through the bottom window to see if we were done eating yet. My mom would typically fret that she was getting fingerprints on the window. I remember standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window as I washed and dried  the dishes every night until we finally got a dishwasher. That was my job, whereas my brother's job was to empty the wastebaskets and take out the trash one night a week. It struck me as highly unfair, particularly on summer evenings when he went out to play after dinner as I cleaned up. I vowed then and there if I ever had a son, he would do just as much housework as a daughter. Never happened!

I wish I still owned that 1950s vintage kitchen table and chairs. The table was a green laminate with chrome metal sides and legs, and there were four matching green vinyl chairs. My chair was the one that faced the windows, with my brother sitting directly across from me, my mother to my left and my dad to my right. In our younger days, my brother and I took turns saying grace at this table. Bowing our heads and clasping our hands, we said, "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for this food." As we got older, saying grace went by the wayside.

My dad had no tolerance for spilling your milk, or whatever you were drinking, at the table. It didn't matter that it was an accident; his immediate reaction was to reach out and slap the perpetrator. My mom would say, "Rex, stop! She (or he) didn't mean to do that!" But the very next time he'd slap again. It was weird--it triggered this momentary automatic flash of anger in him. The only thing I could figure was that he was punished that way when he was little for the same infraction.

Mounted high on the back wall was a small, green-faced kitchen clock. I was in the 3rd grade when had my eyes tested and found out I needed glasses. I remember when I came home wearing my new glasses for the first time and glanced up at that clock on the kitchen wall. I couldn't believe how clearly I could see the time! It was like a whole new world suddenly opened up to me.

If you look hard, you can see a wall phone mounted between the back windows and the overhead cabinets on the left side of the room. Our phone number was GR6-3273; the GR stood for Greenleaf. I still remember my grandmother's phone number too:  FI9-2385 (Fieldbrook). So many conversations, happy and sad, took place on that phone. My mom called her sister and her parents every day. For some reason, my aunt was billed when she called us from her home in Pontiac, but not vice versa. So if she needed to speak to my mom, she'd call and let the phone ring just one time. It was a signal for my mom to call her back. The only time in my life I ever saw my dad cry, he had just hung up that phone after finding out my Uncle Max was dying of cancer.

I vividly remember my mother crying twice in that kitchen. Once she was cleaning out the cupboards and she placed a set of blue glass dishes I had inherited from my great-grandmother on the countertop. She accidentally dropped a glass on top of them and broke the sugar bowl in the set. I was home from college at the time and was laying out in the sun in the backyard. She came out of the house crying and apologizing for breaking the bowl. I remember feeling worse about the fact that she was so upset than about the bowl being broken. And also a twinge of guilt for not being in there helping her rather than laying in the sun. The other time I caught her crying was when my brother and I were young and we had been fighting and arguing off and on all day. I walked into the kitchen and she was sitting in her chair at the table with her back to me, her head was down and she was sobbing quietly. I was shocked. I asked, "What's wrong, mommy?" and she whirled around angrily, mad at me for "sneaking up" on her. I went back to my bedroom, knowing that I deserved to be yelled at for being such a brat earlier in the day but not for sneaking up on my mom, as that surely hadn't been my intention. After thinking about it, I went back in and told her I was sorry. She hugged me and apologized as well.

Wow, so many memories are rooted in this picture. My mom prepared every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner here and spent all day in this kitchen. My dad made popcorn every Sunday night in a big yellow bowl and we'd watch Lassie on TV. Mostly, I remember this room as a kitchen of comfort. A room of family togetherness and happy moments.