PRESERVING MEMORIES

Sunday, June 24, 2007

In the Ditmore tradition we make much of “special” days—birthdays, holidays, vacations and special trips. We have always preserved them on film. We have pictures of almost every Christmas we have ever celebrated. We have pictures of birthday celebrations, vacations, family reunions, trips to distant places, forty years of trips to the campus of Pepperdine University and much, much more.

Charlotte is now converting many of our pictures and slides to musical DVD’s. This is an absolutely wonderful way to preserve memories. I have watched these with tears in my eyes from laughter and also sadness. A good example is the DVD with the title “Holy Land Trip 1978”. Along with my wife, I took twelve ladies with me and we joined up with about three hundred others (men and women) on a trip to the “Holy Land.” The men left behind called this group of ladies, “Clif’s harem.” It was the trip of a lifetime. However, tears come to my eyes when looking at the pictures on our large screen television where the people are “bigger than life” and realizing they have all passed away accept Charlotte and two other ladies.

“Memories, how they linger, how they ever flood the soul.”