Stan Hitchcock-View From The Front Porch-June 4, 2013

Denise has been going through book after book of pictures of our son Scott, picking out some special ones to display at the Wedding Reception. Looking over her shoulder, as I gazed at our life in photographs, I was once again aware of just what treasures of family history good Mothers made with their cameras. They document our lives, the precious moments that help you recall the happy times that cement a family together in love.

From the early Tintypes, that Grandma Hitchcock gave me before she passed away, giving me a glimpse of the ones that would have been only names on paper except for these, and then the old Brownie Kodak that my Mother used to capture me in infancy, then there was the Polaroid’s that have faded somewhat over the years, but did the job of documenting the 50's and 60's like nothing else ever did.

All the nights through the years when I would see Denise at the Dining Room table, her picture albums spread out and new pictures being added...oh, what treasures they are to us all now. Hey, I've spent my adult life making video of music and stories, but they pale in importance, compared to Denise's book of memories.

So, here's to the Mothers, snapping pictures at all the stages of our lives, freezing in time, a look, a gesture, an event, the friends, the new babies being born, the school play when she got up and went down to the edge of the stage to snap a picture, without hesitation, while I would have sat there and just kept quiet, feeling embarrassed, but not Mother's...nothing would stop them from the capture of the moment. That's why there are hundreds of pictures, more of all of us, and fewer of the Mothers, because that's how Mother's are...family first...themselves later.

Thank you Denise, now I understand, you documented our life...the joy of the moment, captured forever. Stan

p.s....I took a few of you, also.