Random Photo: Spring Tulips and a Birthday Clue

I had no good ideas for a post today, so as I sometimes do, I looked through old photographs for inspiration. This time, I was looking for something spring-ish. And I found a snapshot of my brother and me examining spring tulips. I didn’t remember this picture, but it was one that my father saved on the CD of family photographs that he had made for himself and for his children.

This snapshot brought a smile to my face, because we are currently in tulip season here in Kansas City. In fact, everything seems to be blooming at once this year—daffodils, tulips, iris, redbud trees, fruit trees. I’ve seen them all driving around the neighborhood. So this photograph from my childhood seemed appropriate.

I wasn’t sure, just looking at this picture, where and when it was taken. I found another picture of my brother and me along with our mother in front of our house. The same tulips are blooming on the side of the house. (My dad must have taken both photos, as he usually did. I have so appreciated that my father had these old slides digitized. But I wish he had labeled them better.)

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I don’t remember the outside of this house, though I know it is ours because my parents’ car is in the driveway. That’s the 1955 Ford Victoria that my mother received from her father for her college graduation. That was the only car my parents owned until about 1963, when my dad bought a second car.

The house is a duplex. Our family lived in two duplexes—one in Richland, Washington, from 1957 until about September 1959, and another in Corvallis, Oregon, from September 1959 until about November 1961. The house number is 1261, but I don’t remember the house number of either the Richland or the Corvallis duplex. I remember the street name of the Richland duplex, and there is no 1261 on that street (at least not now). That’s one clue that it is probably the Corvallis duplex.

In addition, given my size and that of my brother in the snapshot, Corvallis is more likely. My brother was just two years old when we moved from Richland to Corvallis, and he looks older than two in this picture.

Another indication of where and when the tulip pictures were taken is that the next picture on my dad’s CD is of my birthday celebration. Given the disorder of the CD, this is not determinative, but it is at least another clue.

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I don’t remember this birthday cake (though I can tell it’s angel food—my favorite as a kid), but I remember many other items in this picture from my childhood. The lamb vase. The rooster tablecloth. The mug with my name on it. The bib my mother made me out of a dish towel. (My brother had a matching bib.)

And it sure looks as if there are five candles on the cake, making this my fifth birthday in April 1961.

So given all these clues, I surmise that the tulip pictures—along with my birthday picture—were all taken in the spring of 1961. Probably in early April of that year.

Sixty years ago this year. Wow.

In the course of researching the tulip snapshots, I have gone from trying to piece together a timeline from memory, deduction, and Google Maps, to reviewing my life. At five years of age, I had no clue what my life would bring. I thought I would be married and a mommy, and those aspects of life came true. But I could not have told you what a lawyer did, let alone that I would become one. Nor that I would end up living in Kansas City, Missouri. Nor that I would write many novels. Nor any of a myriad of other happenings in my life.

But both as a child and now as a senior citizen (barely), I enjoy tulips. And springtime.

How is spring treating you this year? Does it bring back memories for you?