Millinocket, Maine

You can't photograph memories.

Millinocket, Maine is an example of this. When I was quite young -- 4 or 5 -- I went to Millinocket with my father and mother. My father was an engineer, who specialized in pulp and paper mills. He had a lot of jobs in northern Maine, New Brunswick and New Hampshire in the early 1960s. I don't remember much about the trip -- watching Superman on a black and white TV in a motel room, getting string beans in tomato sauce at a restaurant on the way home. I vaguely remember a truss railroad bridge and a lot of snow, but I don't remember where exactly that was. I also remember visitig the stores in downtown Millinocket with my mother.



I returned to Millinocket over the weekend -- August 14, 2016 -- and none of those memories matched reality. The mills, from what I could see, are gone. The town doesn't seem as large or vibrant as it was. And of course the trains aren't dominant anymore. I found myself entering into that frustrating affliction all humans have -- what do I remember and how do I remember it? As much as I tried, I just couldn't recapture anything more than a few shreds of images in my head. The opening of Superman for instance.

Did I see Bangor & Aroostock deisels in their heyday? Yes. I have always known I have seen an EMD BL-2 for instance. Did I see it at Millinocket? Probably there or close by. Do I have any recollection of it in a specific time and place? No.

You can dig deleted images out of an old harddrive with the right software. It doesn't always work, but you can recapture things that shouldn't have been deleted or things you changed your mind about. It is too bad -- on some levels -- that you cannot do the same with your own mind. Sure there are lots of things in my mind that are best forgotten, but that trip to Millinocket isn't one of them. I'd like to be able to replay the images I saw. I'd like to see my parents as young again. But it has been 50 or more years since those images were recorded and I doubt I will ever have more than just these fragments.




No, you can't photograph memories. But you can photograph the present even if it doesn't seem as glamorous as the past. Even if the deisel you are looking at is a former Union Pacific SD-40-2 that spent a long and dedicated career hauling freight around the western U.S. Even if the yard it sat in on a quiet Sunday morning looks empty. Even if the coaling tower behind it is just waiting for ghost steam locomotives to return to servie.

You can't photograph memories unless you photograph what you can see now because as soon as you turn your back that will be a memory too.