Erasure
Try to imagine what it was like, back then. That’s the game I play, any time I run across a collection of old photographs. Doesn’t matter where, or when (although I do enjoy seeing things from my own timeline).
This evening, I came across some postcards (online) from a town where I used to live. Given the dates, none showed places I know well, but the mind plays tricks. Sure, the main street looked like that… runs in the same direction now, and there must be a few of the buildings that date back. Not many, unfortunately; we tend to employ the wrecking ball whenever the opportunity presents.
And as for “real scenery”, take it as truth that the lake still sits in the same place, and that the shoreline (once you pare away at the frosting of cottages) is “as now and ever shall be”, as they say in churches. I can’t speak to old vehicles as much, and the odd airplane from “then” is too cool, albeit just a slower version of any Cessna.
I’m surprised that we rarely see a bicycle in the background. Did people not pedal? What about horses? Is this a measure of when film finally reached a price point that Joe Average could afford? Which reminds me. All those digital pictures you guard so proudly on your smart gadget? Not likely to be around, the next time a historian takes inventory. And that is perhaps the real tragedy of our march to progress. Dead hard drives will far outreach that wrecking ball as a way to erase our past.
