CODY SOSSAMON PUBLISHER “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

That song by Rod Stewart from the 1970s has been running through my head for the past couple of days and unlike most times when a song gets stuck there, I know why I keep playing this one over and over.

I’ve been looking at a bunch of pictures for the past several days. A BUNCH of pictures.

I don’t know exactly how many pictures are in a bunch, but it’s a lot more than the number of grapes in a bunch.

To give you some idea, imagine one of those plastic storage containers about the size of a trunk. Now imagine that same trunk full of pictures. Don’t know what a trunk is? A trunk is what kids used to pack all of their clothes in when heading off to summer camp. Kinda like a pirate’s chest. Get the picture? Oh man, how clever was that? I’m writing about pictures and, well you know.

Anyway. My first-born, Katharine Elizabeth, is getting married July 24. Prior to the wedding is a rehearsal dinner and like at most rehearsal dinners, Katie and her fiance plan on showing some pictures of themselves when they were growing up.

That’s why I’ve been looking through all these pictures. I’ve learned that it’s not all that unusual to have boxes of loose pictures stored away. I was under stored away. I was under the impression that my wife and I were just a little slack because we did not put our photos in an album — all neat and organized with little captions written under the pictures including the date, location and the names of those shown.

That’s what our

That’s what our mothers did, so we just assumed that everyone else did, too. I have since discovered that a bunch (there’s that word again) of you are like us when it comes to pictures. We take them, make prints, look at them and stick ‘em in a drawer or box.

Only when a special occasion — like a wedding — comes along do we drag the box out of the attic and look at them.

I had been going through these pictures few days and know I all by my lonesome for the past few days and know I have been driving my wife nuts.

About every other minute, I’ll say “Look at this one!”

She soon tires of my “look at this ones,” and leaves the room.

That just makes me have to yell, “Sherry, come here! You’ve got to see this one!”

Most of the ones I make her look at are from years ago when she had big hair. Really BIG hair.

When she refuses to respond to my “look at this ones,” I summon the children.

They love to see their momma barefoot and pregnant in really BIG hair.

But hey, I do not just pick on her. I’ve found a few doozies of myself and other family members that I make everyone look at.

That’s one of the reasons it has taken me days to go through the box of pictures. Every time I find a good one, I must share it with someone.

With some of the pictures, I have absolutely no idea when or where they were taken. On a few, I don’t even know the people in them.

The vast majority, though, stir fond memories when

replay the stories they tell.

I’ll bet most of you reading this have a box of pictures stuck in a corner of your house somewhere. One rainy day or bad TV night, pull the box out, gather the family around the kitchen table and enjoy the stories of your life.

Cody Sossamon (cody@gaffneyledger.com) is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.