My older brother Kevin is an accomplished photographer, and half a century ago he took a series of photographs in my birthplace of Bogalusa, Louisiana. Here are just a few (as always, click for a screen-filling version). Here is my late mother next to her much older brother Henry (mom was the youngest of nine) standing on the family farm.
Here is my Ma-Maw Rucker, who was born in the late 1800s. In this picture, she is in the chicken coop, which is where I as a boy got to hold baby chicks and discovered my fondness for animals.
Finally, here is my paternal grandfather, who owned a grocery store with his wife in Bogalusa. I barely knew my grandparents, since they were all dead by the time I was only about seven years old, but I remember seeing them every Christmas in my earliest years.
