Um… Hey, I Have Your Family Photo
I bought Josh a copy of Circe by Madeline Miller at a used book sale. It was in perfect shape; the jacket pristine and the pages clean. If someone read the copy, they did so neatly. As in very neatly. They were clearly a book lover.
One night, Josh came in the room and tossed a photo onto the bed. “This fell out of the book while I was reading it.” ChickieNob and I looked at the picture. It was a family — seven people in all — posing on a Jaws-themed set, pretending a shark was about to eat them.
The picture, like the book, was in pristine shape, tucked inside a cardstock folder labeled Cinespia and printed by Amazon. We Googled it — it’s an organization that hosts viewings of classic films out in Los Angeles. Jaws had been shown back in June.
Over the next day or two, we kept going back to the picture, unsure of what we should do. I asked the used book organization. They thought the book was probably donated by someone in Maryland, but it could have come from anywhere in the United States. For instance, it could have been from Los Angeles, where the picture was clearly printed.
“You could post the picture on Facebook,” the ChickieNob offered. “Maybe with a message like, ‘Hey, I have your family photo. Do you want it back?'”
Because they kind of looked like an awesome family who was having the best time with one another. I thought about how this was why I thumbed through each book I returned or donated a dozen times; because I was so afraid to leave anything behind. Plus the picture was from an event and it looked expensive.
Then one night, Josh came back in the bedroom and dropped a boarding pass on the bed. “Another clue.” At that point, we asked him to thumb through the book for any other slips of paper, but these two items were the only things tucked into the crisp pages. The boarding pass had a name on it and a date for the flight, one day after the date for the movie.
I Googled the name and found two people with the same name: one in Los Angeles (promising!) and one in Maryland (promising, too!) The one in Maryland had her work email address listed on a website, but the Los Angeles one did not, so I decided to start with the Maryland one.
She wrote back the next day saying that it certainly sounded like her photo. We made plans to meet at a Starbucks so I could reunite her with her photo and boarding pass. (Okay, maybe she didn’t need the boarding pass, but it does make a handy bookmark.)
The woman was lovely and told me the story of the photo. It had been the only four days her three children could get together over the course of the whole year. One was living on the west coast, one had been traveling through Vietnam, and one was in medical school. The family met in Los Angeles and went to the movie together on the last night. This was the only copy of this photo, capturing a silly moment for their reunited family. I was so happy that I got it back in her hands.
There’s not really a point to this story because I ultimately reunited the photo with its owner without needing the help of the Internet, unless you count that quick Google session. It’s more a PSA to take your bookmarks out of your books before you return them. AND it’s a PSA to buy used books because you never know what you’ll find inside.
Thank you, random person, for gifting us with a fun two-day mystery.
12 comments
This was such a nice story to read!
What a great story. I’m so glad you went to the trouble of reuniting it with its family. Not everyone would have done that.
I also thumb through every book several times and check every pocket of clothing, any time I donate.
I often use photos as bookmarks and so do my kids.
I sell used books on Amazon, buying most of my inventory at local library book sales and thrift stores. I find so many cool things in them, but have never had anything I could have managed to return like this. Very awesome! I have found a few dollars and once an unused $30 best buy gift card (I bought a waterpik for myself with it). We have a collection of bookmarks and I think it’s fun when I find the original receipt from the book. I once came across an article on interesting words and one of them was for items found in books. I cannot remember the book or find the article and it’s been a few years. If you happen to know it or come across the word, please put me out of my misery.
But did she like the book? Or did she just buy it for the plane ride and never read it – just used it as a convenient holder?
Lovely story – and I’m glad you solved the mystery!
Oh, I am so glad you were able to reunite the photo with its owner! My genealogist/family photographer’s heart always hurts when I hear about stories like this, or see photos that have gone astray with no or few clues as to whose family it might belong to. It’s personal for me — my father’s family’s photos (& other possessions) were in a storage locker that got emptied out for non-payment (loooonnnggggg story there, and a lot of anger from a lot of people over that!) so we have very few photos from those days. I imagine they wound up in a dumpster/landfill somewhere 🙁 but I just can’t imagine throwing out photos. I see the Marie Kondos of the world advising people to toss photos & I just want to scream…!
There is an entire website/blog that deals with this sort of thing — can’t remember how I stumbled onto it, but I’ve been reading it for years!:
https://www.forgottenbookmarks.com/
I love that this mystery that came out of an epic novel. Literally.
What a great story!
Yay! I love that the picture was returned.
We found a toy kitty in the park a few weeks ago, with the help of FB we were able to return it.
That is an amazing story! I love that you sleuthed it out, no matter the means, and got that photo back to its owner. Used books are amazing. So much better than the used bandaid Bryce found in one of his…
I love that! Good for you, for making the effort. You’ll get good karma for that.
And yes, boarding passes make good bookmarks. So do I! (I’m making some at the moment for the bloggers I did my x365 challenge with last year. Do you want one?)
I am so glad that you were able to get this photo back to its rightful owner. What fun!
That is such a great story!! I love the little mystery aspect to it. I am also amazed at the luck of how quickly you were able to solve it, given the recent clues. Most used books tend to be older and therefore any clues would be trickier to track down.
As a side note, one of the things I love about used books is the little treasures…like inscriptions or notes as bookmarks. I like to imagine the previous owner.
What a lovely story!