LOOKING BACK IN TIME

If you’ve been following my blog posts, you know we recently had central air conditioning installed in our house. The house, built circa 1914, is like a brick fortress that the A/C installer said will never fall. See Let’s Talk About Central Air, dated September 9, 2025, What Lurks in the Crawl Space?, dated November 4, 2025, and Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall, dated November 11, 2025, at sharonmmarkcohen.com.

In conversation with the installer, I learned that his helper, Kevin, whom he trained to install central air units, lives in Linden, New Jersey. That led to an in-depth conversation with the gentleman, during which I discussed my roots, “across the highway,”* in Roselle, and shared the history of our family in Linden.

The next time they came to work on the air conditioning, I pulled Kevin aside to show him a picture of my mother in her 3rd grade class in Roselle. She’s seated in the second row, fifth from left. I have that photo displayed in the bookcase atop our secretary desk. That’s the only picture we have of my mother at such a young age.

Upon noting the very diverse group of students in the picture, Kevin asked what year the photo was taken. I told him my mother was born in 1915, so it must have been about 1923.

He commented, “It’s cool you guys have these old pictures, you get to look back in time and see where you’re from.” I suppose he’d been studying the wall of vintage family photos that lines the side of our staircase.

Why not bring out your family photos? What’s the point of keeping them hidden in a box or file cabinet? There’s so much to talk about!

*To learn more, look back at any of my 20 blog posts referencing Roselle, New Jersey

Family photos lining the wall along our staircase