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By MICHAEL PERKINS

IN “VOICES OF OLD PEOPLE”, THE POIGNANT SOUND MONTAGE of eldercare patients assembled by a young Art Garfunkel for the 1968 Bookends album, one sentimental senior, unable to find an old snapshot, remarks that he would give “without regret, one hundred dollars for that picture”, a sentence that is saturated with a longing that can no longer be satisfied. That one utterance imprinted on my sixteen-year-old self, forever establishing the value of both the photographs left behind, but, even more, the ghostly essence of the images lost to time. Now, as I have reached (and probably surpassed) the age of the old man in that montage, I find that photographs are, more than ever, a kind of testimony for me, as well as a trail of bread crumbs for my children, who may be even more keenly aware than I that time is running short, and that certain information must be mustered.

That may be why, as Marian and I took on the daunting task, two years ago, of disposing of over half our earthly possessions in order to downsize to a more manageable space, we very deliberately photo-catalogued many items that were too troublesome to carry forward, but which still might have the power to spark fond memory, for us and especially our kids. We were caught up in the newly popular practice of Swedish Death Cleaning, the discipline involved in just leaving less stuff behind for others to sort through and clean up once one leaves the stage. These pictures of various trophies and keepsakes were not rushed, like random snapshots, but done in as close to studio conditions as our very short timeline permitted. After all, they have to capture the elusive essences that made us hoard the objects for long. They are storage batteries for a very personal energy.

The diorama that Marian’s daughter made of her dream dance studio back in grade school (top) and my fond farewell to my enormous “kit bag” of electronic connectors and adapters (above) shared the same fate, i.e, the “discard” pile, but not before they posed for their respective close-ups. They shared “studio” space with wall art, old book friends, Art Deco teapots, shirt-pocket radios and a swarm of other life markers. It’s amused us to consider that, having gotten rid of one kind of junk pile, i.e., the actual physical souvies of a lifetime, that we merely swapped it for an electronic cache that will also have to be decoded by our loved ones, if they are so inclined. Hard to know if that’s really progress, but……

At the end of Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends song cycle, as two friends, both advanced in age (“how terribly strange to be seventy..”), share a park bench, they again underscore the value of a physical memento of their shared adventures:

long ago, it must be……I have a photograph…….preserve your memories…..they’re all that’s left you……..