Preserving Innocence Worth the Expense

I have so many feelings. I am excited. I am nervous. I am confident. I am insecure. I look around at all the stars and see such talent and think, "I don't even belong in their company." Yet, I still believe I deserve to win this award as much as anyone else. All the time and money I have put into this craft is going to finally be rewarded.

And look at all these acceptance speeches I have prepared, none will do: "I would like to thank my momma and my pappa.." That sounds like I just won a country music award. And this one, "Time; as aged, wrinkled, and emaciated as it is, gives way to ..." No No, I wrote that the night I had seen the Rolling Stones. Maybe this one will do, "I have a dream..." Hmm, maybe TOO stolen.

I will just have to accept my award spontaneously. It's not like there is a long history here at the "Awards for the Academy of Baby Videos and Photo Scrapbooks." Still, I have to recognize the considerable significance of being nominated in this category: "Best Comedy Writing below a Scrapbook Photo." If I win this, I could write my own ticket to next year's: "Best Performance Using Double Sided Tape."

Ok, it hasn't progressed quite this far, but for a suburb dwelling parent in Peachtree City, keeping a multi-media representation of baby has reached massive proportions. If one thing has changed in culture in the past 40 or so years since I was a baby, it is the effort and expense put into capturing child memories. When I was a kid, about every 6 months my mom would take out the "Brownie," slap in a roll of film and take some pictures. This was when you actually had to unroll the film to put it in the camera and when most photos were taken in front of the formidable family car, which was usually about two thirds the length of the house if you didnt' count the equally formidable hand-clipped hedges. There were no double prints, no auto-focus. You had to literally be rich to see real, live, flickering motion.

Nowadays, you have scrapbook clubs, scrapbook parties, scrapbook internet sites (my search brought back 89) and whole scrapbook stores. All these solely exist to pleasantly and artistically accommodate photographs in a nice, tidy, 40 pound digest; and this is just for "year one." Now throw in Video cams, Hand cams, Mini cams, in 1/2 inch, 7mm, 8mm format and it gets expensive as well as technical. And if you are really into high tech, you would have a family website as we do.

Actually all these "advances" merge into a model synopsis of our current society. They are that perfect blend of commerce, technology and the human spirit.

But have we fallen yet again into a trap? Why do we believe "more is better" when it comes to recording our child's every word, walk or mouthful? Is it fear that makes us clutch more and more tightly to everything good and beautiful while we can? Do we need happy reminders for when the inevitable tough days come? Are we so cynical that we think every movie or snapshot might be the last recording of what we hold most precious?

I would hope for once, that we are simply practicing, "anything worth doing is overdoing." No time, effort or money is better spent than on remembering the innocence of a child, an innocence I might add, that I love to look at in a 35 year old black & white picture that is thumbtacked in my office; one of the few pictures I don't mind looking at, of me.

Billy Murphy - 1/12/98