My house is a little bit like an archeological site. The past tends to get buried and forgotten, and it takes some sort of minor upheaval to bring it up again, in bits and pieces. Some of these fragments of the past aren’t even really mine, so they’re that much more mysterious.

Almost 20 years ago I somehow came into possession of a small talking picture frame (not the one at the link but similar). There was no recorded message, but when I opened it up, I found the photograph shown above. While I never found any use for the frame itself, I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw the picture away. The talking frame is long gone, but the photo remained, lost beneath the layers of my own stuff until I re-discovered it the other day. Something about those hopeful expressions still draws me in and stokes a burning curiousity. Who were these smiling young boys, perhaps brothers? Did they continue playing music as they matured? What happened to them in their later lives? So many unanswered questions.