Click, Snap, Tap

 No, those noises are not made by a rice cereal. They're the sound of someone "taking a picture". And that has changed over time. "Click" was once the sound, "snap" was what we called the picture taken with a click, but now, it's "tap". A cell phone tap. Among the many taps of the cyberspace era, some are for taking pictures of other things or oneself with others or alone. Selfies. Like, who really cares? Very few of them are keepers. I am harbouring boxes and boxes of something called "slides" and very old photographs that are posed by those who could stand perfectly still for minutes at a time. What am I going to do with these pictures that someone thought were times important enough to preserve? I dare to think they will be tossed into a flame somewhere. Why that should bother me, is mysterious because these people lived in a time when women had to wear floor length skirts and hats as big as a floor. Everyone in them, looks dour. I imagine, it's hard to hold a smile that long and anyway, most of them likely had bad teeth because there were no dental plans or implants or water picks. Also, women wore corsets and men, stiff collars. Ouch. Not much to smile about. More recently in the middle of the last century when I was once youngish, we travelled the world. It was cheaper then and no line-ups to see what is now covered with plastic shields, security guards and fences. It costs a fortune to tour, and is no longer comfortable, cheap or charming to do so. It was Then, this is crazy, Now.  In that day, the sound of picture taking was indicative of a time when you'd go home later and show your travels to family and tolerant friends. When the little movie cameras came along, it expanded into snaps of every child's important life moments such as learning to walk, smear birthday cake and graduate high school, not to speak of doing weddings. Every family had a wall of portraits, of smiling happy families with Dad, Mom and the offspring. Those were the days when a family meant one family in a lifetime. Very different today. One of the walls of family fame that I visited lately, had Mom's side and Dad's side and former Mom's and Dad's sides with their kids. Times two or three. I gave up trying to say such as, "I see the family resemblance" because frankly, I didn't. They were all mixed up like a macaroni salad, these people. In the fifties and sixties day, we were invited over to sit and watch someone's trip to a hot island somewhere and the beach, the palm trees, the sunsets and the turquoise pool with wet people in it. I always dreaded those invitations because picture watching makes me sleepy, especially hours of it.  I don't like my picture taken or taking them. The reason is, I worry about what will happen to the pictures. Most of us look at a picture a couple of times and then put it somewhere until there is a family reunion or a funeral. Let's be frank here. I don't take pictures any more. What I can't remember can't be worth remembering.