And speaking of old photographs...

Hearing about my parents' find, I feel a little like researchers must have felt when they came across vintage Disfarmer portraits. Disfarmer was a small-town Arkansas photographer whose work has become widely admired and also quite valuable. Given his birth name, I wonder if he's related to Mr. B. And given that he was an eccentric who lacked basic social skills and was rumored to live on chocolate ice cream, I wonder if he's related to me, too. His is an interesting story - you can watch it here or read about him here. I'm not sure why it is so fascinating to look at portraits of strangers - I guess it's because every face tells a story. Some of which probably began, "It was the night before Fred was shipping out. We grabbed our fedoras and headed on down to the abandoned cigarette factory where the jazz was hot and the chicks were cool...."

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