Family Portraits from the early 1960's

At least I sure hope these are from when I was in roughly first grade!

There are faint captions on some of these.  This is My Family.

Now, I have three brothers but only two are shown here.  I think it probable that I, as the artist, did not include myself.  Yes, mom presumably looked like that when pregnant but the math does not work with regards to when I was in early grade school.  Also, the concept of Conception was still some years off in the future fort Young Me.  By the way, my dad  never sported a ZZ Top beard.  I think that was supposed to be a tie.  Also, as brothers we'd occasional tussle but would not kick each other in the butt when our parents were standing right there!

Probably our beloved dog White Tip.  Or an obese cat.  I cannot explain the wheels.

This one is labeled My Mother.  Evidently my youthful impressions were that she dressed nicely when she went to the grocery store.  And that she had huge feet.  Hmmmm, is the tendency for children to show adults with giant feet an inevitable side effect of us growing up down at knee level?  In some respects this image raises more questions than it answers.  What is the meaning of S P on the grocery bag?  I think our family mostly shopped at either Red Owl or Piggly Wiggly.  And, am I trying to be helpful here?  Or does the subtle creative nuance of showing my tongue hanging out mean I am ravenously hungry and trying to grab the bag away from her?

Well this one is clearly labeled My Father.  It's an interesting study, no?

The figure is tall, see my earlier comments on the knee high perspective.  He's lean and fit.  That wasn't dad at all.  He was, for as far back as my memories go, rather round in the middle.

Here he is wearing a blue shirt, something  I never know that he did back then.  It was standard white shirt and tie every working day.  Which was darn near every day!

Yet work is implied.  I've written earlier about the old doctor's bag that came out of the same cluttered basement as all these works of "art".

Well, there it is.  This seems to confirm that he was still using it in the early 1960's.  (for reference I was born in early 1957, and frog marched off to Kindergarten at age 4 in what would have been fall of 1961).

As to details, well, he was certainly bald and wore glasses.  I don't think he customarily had this determined facial expression nor the confident striding out into the world pose.  He was probably up and out of the house doing hospital rounds before we arose, and returned home tired at about 7pm most days.  The garish red lips?  Hey, when you hand a young artist a red crayon you get this sort of result.   Here's what he looked like towards the end of his days.  He's happily talking over Old Times, still smiling at the joke I just told him.  I confess to recycling some of my better ones.  It's the only nice thing you can say about memory loss.  It makes you a great audience!