Riding A Camel

 Riding A Camel

My Parents

Fall 1984

Egypt

My parents went to Egypt in 1984 and they hated it.  My mother got sick and dehydrated and had to be hospitalized.  My dad thought the country was "a filthy, dirty place." And they were so glad to get home.  So I was surprised to see their pictures which gave the appearance of two people having a good time

They weren't photo people but for some reason, they had about 50 copies of this particular photo.  I don't know why and when I quested both of them, they both thought the other was behind this aberrant act of ordering too many copies of the photo.  

When they decided to downsize and move to a smaller home, they were going to throw them all out but I secured them.  I had an idea of how to use them.

At the time, I was a high school principal and every time a staff member did something very positive, I would meet with that person and present him/her with one of these photos. I told the recipients that I wanted to give them something near and dear to my heart.  They anticipated something of value and I gave them this stupid photo.  I thought I was being hysterical and some of them thought so as well.  Others, not so much.

Anyway, after a few of them had been distributed, the acquisition of the photos sort of became honorable.  And faculty started displaying them on bulletin boards in their classrooms for everyone to see.

One student asked a teacher, "What's with all of these photos of the old people on the camel?"

She flippantly replied, "I don't know them.  I just really like the photo of the camel?"