In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Never Too Late.”
I guess I need to Thank my Grandfather ultimately for where I am today. It’s funny in so many ways we never really saw eye to eye, and never really got along all that well, but I bet if he was still around now, we could have some great chats on photography, painting, drawing and travelling.
He was an amazing man, he was a painter, a photographer, an adventurer, and a story-teller. We often forget that when we see a doddering old man, he was once a vibrant young man, strong, ambitious, with hopes & dreams, it’s sad. Even at his memorial service, I was in awe of some of the amazing things he did, my children never even knew most of the stories about him, a lot I didn’t know either. Sure he was a typical kid from the early 1900’s; used to put penny on train tracks and chase frogs, tease his sisters….but as a young man he took on the Outback, in the early 1920’s with a very unreliable old junker of a car. He took photos and painted and gathered stories. Don’t get me wrong it did not skip a generation; he Married my Nan and turned her into a great adventurer…….they had my Mum and she was just as talented and an adventuress as her parents. Then she met my Dad, and wow they really took the world by storm, covered it from one end to the other; usually with me and my brother in tow. Still today they travel, not as far and not quite as often, but they still travel.
As a kid, none of those stories ever really impressed me, but I find myself wanting some of these things. I now in my middle age I guess have again picked up a camera, a far cry from what Pa had I am sure, I don’t paint so much any more on canvas, it’s more in my photos. I still collect, write and try to tell stories, but now I want some adventures…….I’ve had a few small ones, I am building up to the big ones still to come!
Sure I can thank my parents, and I do. But I guess it’s from Pa that my Mum and I both get the artist, the travel bug. So Pa, thank you, and we miss you! Love J.
Julie Powell - Photographer & Graphic Artist 