Kicking off the New Year With a Classic Throwback Story

This is what I like about photographs.
They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.

by Skip Cohen

It's a new year filled with possibilities. What I love most about Throwback Thursday is the wonder of turning back the clock to a time and world that wasn't filled with so many horrific tragedies. Mining for old memories lives up to author Jodi Picoult's quote above, which I've shared so many times in the past.

Over the last few days, I started my annual process of cleaning out the closet in my home office—a daunting task! In the process, I found a large envelope of things my folks had saved over the years. The fun of old photographs is always in the backstory of memories that immediately flow.

​I found the postcard below. 

Little Skippy at six

The backstory starts with me being a little introverted as a kid. My parents thought it would help me if I went to an overnight camp for a couple of nights. I was only six, but they, along with a friend's parents in the neighborhood, decided Camp Loretta would be perfect for both of us.

What's missing in the card, which from printing my name you can see I never wrote, is that the experience was terrifying.

The first night, the counselor told us a ghost story about the Ghost of Camp Loretta who, in the past, came in the window (the one by my bunk) and took one of the kids while they were sleeping. The counselor, as he told the story, lifted his t-shirt, and his back was covered in scars - captured by the Ghost when he was younger. He'd been tied up and whipped. (The scars were probably lipstick streaks, but told in the light of a small flashlight, they sure looked real to little Skippy!)

Well, I was in the top bunk, and my friend was in the bottom. In the middle of the night, I was so scared that I climbed down from my top bunk and into bed with my friend Danny. That wouldn't have been an issue, except that I wet HIS bed! That led to the bunk all waking up and the counselor making me take my wet underwear out and hang it on the laundry line at the edge of the woods - where the Ghost was waiting. Miraculously, I didn't die and survived the ordeal.

As I looked at the postcard, so much more than just that story came to mind. To start, the card was written by the counselor who planted all the fears! For the next twenty years, I'd sleep with the cover over my head! And for years as a kid, I'd never go into a dark room without making a lot of noise, hopefully giving the Boogie Man time to leave.

Fifty years later, I'd catch up to Danny. My buddy and photographer, Arnold Crane, mentioned his name one night when talking about people he was working with. I tracked Danny down, who was then living in Los Angeles, as was I. We grabbed dinner, and I apologized for wetting his bed. His response: "You're kidding me. After all these years, I thought I did it—I was in therapy for years!" There was nothing but laughter that followed.

So, here's my point—take the time to start the new year out right, and make Throwback Thursday your day to turn back the clock with a look in your rearview mirror. I'm not suggesting you dwell on the past; just take the time to appreciate it. Plus, old photographs are the perfect way to stay focused on the value of imaging and our ability as an industry to help the world turn the intangible into tangible memories we can hold in our hands forever.

Happy Throwback Thursday!

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