Smile For The Camera, 11th Edition - My Bubba and Me

The word prompt for the 11th Edition of Smile For The Camera at

Shades of the Departed is Brothers & Sisters.

My submission here is a photograph of my brother, James, and me. I called him "Bubba" until he was old enough to be embarrassed by the nickname and shortened it to "Bub" after we started school. Fortunately, it never caught on with his friends, who called him James, Jimmy, or Jim. The photograph was made on Easter Sunday morning when he was 4 1/2 years old, and I was almost 6, in front of the fence that surrounded our front yard where we lived in the Mississippi Delta. My paternal grandmother was the photographer, and she used a Brownie camera that I recall from my childhood. Since we grew up on a working farm and spent many hours playing outside, I am certain that our grandmother enjoyed snapping a picture of us when we were "all cleaned up." I can still hear her say to me "o oui" when I got "all dressed up," meaning " O yes - you look so pretty." My mother, a talented seamstress, made almost all the clothes we wore during our early childhood, and the white organdy dress and petticoat that I am wearing, as well as my brother's dress shorts and white shirt, were most certainly products of her handiwork. Unfortunately, our younger brother, who was still a toddler, was not included in this picture.