Picture Tag: A Picture Really Is Worth A Thousand Words

The Explanation

My normal routine in the morning once I'm at work is to procure the necessary caffeinated beverage, turn on the computer, check email, then hit the blog scroll for updated posts. Sometimes a blog that I subscribe to leads to an other's blog which leads to an other's blog, much like Amazon's 'if you liked this, you might like this to' link. While following a link of bloggers, I ran across GingerMagnolia's blog post about a picture tag. The idea was that you are supposed to post the 6th photo on the 6th page of your computer’s picture files, and also on whatever photo-sharing website you use.

While writing this post I'm not at home. Therefore, I do not have my laptop in front of me. However, I do have some pictures on this particular computer and I do utilize a photo-sharing website. I have decided to complete this picture tag. The results brought back two very nostalgic moments for me. Both made me tear up a bit. Let me share with you.

Picture Tag #1: : The Photo-Sharing Site

Last year one of the High School's Business Partners (BP) sponsored a visitation trip to WVU. The BP (Business Partner) set some guidelines as to the students that would attend the trip. The High School pulls from some areas that are more poverty ridden than most other areas in Kanawha Valley. Some of our students will be first generation to graduate from high school. Some of our students want to go to college, but struggle to find enough financial aid. Many of our students that do realize that college is a possibility will be first generation college students and hopeful graduates. Most of our students go into the blue collar workforce, mostly the mines. Our BP wants to help change the attitude that college is an impossibility, by granting students the opportunity to see what else is out there, that there are other possibilities, goals, and dreams. Those of us at The High School are very grateful for what our BP and all of our other Partners do for the school and our students. So as I stated before, there were some guidelines.

1. Students needed to be Juniors.
2. Potential first generation college student.
3. Most likely their parents wouldn't or couldn't take them on college visitation days.
4. Teacher recommended.

Seeing that I am a WVU alum and I still have many connections to the University via friends who still live there and friends who work for the University, I was asked to put the trip together. I worked with the folks at the Visitors Resource Center in Morgantown and a friend works in an upper level of the University. If you haven't been to the new visitation center...go. They have put together a wonderful facility. It is very informative, great design, wonderful employees, and the ability to host a number of people and bring guest lecturers in. The director of the Center brought in a representative from the recruiting office and from financial aid to inform students of admission regulations and how to find the money to go to school.

To make a long story short, the students were treated to a Greyhound bus for transportation to and from Morgantown rather than the Cheese Mobile. (TeacherChez was grateful too!) They experience a day in the life of a college student. From touring classrooms and meeting current professors and students, having a one on one with WVU's then President, eating lunch in the Mountainlair with other students, to being able to walk on to Mountaineer Field with WVU's very own Mountaineer Brady Campbell. I took this picture as 28 kids walked through the tunnel that the band and football team walk through on Saturdays to enter and run around on Mountaineer Field! It was quite possible one of the coolest moments to experience and to see kids experience. I cried when I took the picture; it's a good thing I was in the back so the kids didn't see me. I doubt they would have minded, a few of the boys were shedding tears too.

Photo Tag #2: From My Hard Drive

My uncle has a new hobby...genealogy. In his search to find and document our roots, he has also been putting all of the family pictures on the Internet at a share-site, so that we can share them have them documented. As he updates, I have been snagging a few at a time for a project that I have in mind for the future.

The picture is of my grandparents in the very late '70's or the very early '80's. If you look to the right of the picture, I believe that is a 3-4 year old Chez. I was born in 1977. Therefore, I'm thinking this picture is most likely dated 1980. Nonetheless, I adore my grandparents. (Feel free to read my short story Dancing Lessons to determine exactly how much I adore them. It truly is a sweet story.) My grandfather is no longer with us. He lost a fight to Parkinson's when I was a junior in college. My grandmother has since remarried. Her husband happens to be one of my grandfather's best friends. It was awkward at first, but now it makes sense.

I can't remember exactly where this picture was taken, but it caught my grandparents sharing a very loving moment. They always were very much in love. It shows here. It makes my heart swell.