Some of you know that I have a Traces of Texas Facebook page and that my readers send me all kinds of historical photographs of Texas that I put up on the page. A couple of days ago I experienced a rather incredible coincidence regarding one of those photos and I thought that some of you might find it interesting. But first, the backstory:
In 2008 I was on a photo safari in East Texas when I stopped in the small, almost deserted town of Neches to see what I could photograph. There isn't much of anything left in Neches except a strip of old, abandoned stores. I looked around and really didn't see anything that looked interesting but I hate to go to the trouble of stopping somewhere and NOT taking a photo so I stuck my head into a window of one of the abandoned stores and took this shot:
As you can see, the floors are heaving up and the ceiling is coming down. As I stood there I thought about the people who owned it and what they were like and what their dreams were and what happened to them and to their descendents. It's always sad for me to shoot scenes like this because I contemplate the huge effort it took to build a store like this and the hopes that were dashed when the owners finally had to abandon it. And it was hotter than hell outside and I remember standing there and asking myself why I was even taking the photo or why, in fact, I was driving around east Texas in the infernal heat ----- the usual kinds of questions I ask myself on about day 8 of a photo safari.
Anyway, a couple of days ago, one of my Facebook readers sent me the following photograph, which was taken in 1955. It shows THE EXACT SAME STORE with the exact same counter and shelves. If you look clearly, it's easily understood that they are the same place. Mind you, he sent this to me without ever seeing the above photo or knowing anything about it as I had never posted it anywhere. I stood in the window to the right of the window in this photo to take the above photo.
So what are the odds of this happening? I mean, I take a photo in 2008 and, because it's so nondescript, drive away and forget about it. Then I start my Facebook a couple of years later. And then, a couple of years after that, I receive an email from somebody whom I've never met and it contains a photo of the owners of the store in the store back when the store was in operation.
But it gets weirder still. It turns out that the two people in this photograph are the great grandmother and the great uncle of one of our Orangebloods members. I'm not going to "out" him because it is not my place to do so but I think he might post on this thread and tell us himself.
Twilight zone, dudes! Twilight zone!
This post was edited on 3/11 10:10 PM by Hornius Emeritus
In 2008 I was on a photo safari in East Texas when I stopped in the small, almost deserted town of Neches to see what I could photograph. There isn't much of anything left in Neches except a strip of old, abandoned stores. I looked around and really didn't see anything that looked interesting but I hate to go to the trouble of stopping somewhere and NOT taking a photo so I stuck my head into a window of one of the abandoned stores and took this shot:
As you can see, the floors are heaving up and the ceiling is coming down. As I stood there I thought about the people who owned it and what they were like and what their dreams were and what happened to them and to their descendents. It's always sad for me to shoot scenes like this because I contemplate the huge effort it took to build a store like this and the hopes that were dashed when the owners finally had to abandon it. And it was hotter than hell outside and I remember standing there and asking myself why I was even taking the photo or why, in fact, I was driving around east Texas in the infernal heat ----- the usual kinds of questions I ask myself on about day 8 of a photo safari.
Anyway, a couple of days ago, one of my Facebook readers sent me the following photograph, which was taken in 1955. It shows THE EXACT SAME STORE with the exact same counter and shelves. If you look clearly, it's easily understood that they are the same place. Mind you, he sent this to me without ever seeing the above photo or knowing anything about it as I had never posted it anywhere. I stood in the window to the right of the window in this photo to take the above photo.
So what are the odds of this happening? I mean, I take a photo in 2008 and, because it's so nondescript, drive away and forget about it. Then I start my Facebook a couple of years later. And then, a couple of years after that, I receive an email from somebody whom I've never met and it contains a photo of the owners of the store in the store back when the store was in operation.
But it gets weirder still. It turns out that the two people in this photograph are the great grandmother and the great uncle of one of our Orangebloods members. I'm not going to "out" him because it is not my place to do so but I think he might post on this thread and tell us himself.
Twilight zone, dudes! Twilight zone!
This post was edited on 3/11 10:10 PM by Hornius Emeritus
