Crazy Picture Discovery!

Recently, we had to clean out the garage of my Me-Maw and Pe-Paw's old house, because the house had gotten sold.  There was all kinds of junk in the garage because Me-Maw and Pe-Paw used to have garage sales pretty frequently over the years, and they also liked to go to yard sales and flea markets all the time too, so they accumulated a lot of stuff.  A lot of the stuff that was in their garage was just basically old junk that we had to cart off, but some of the stuff was actually pretty neat, and I ended up keeping some of it for myself.

I happily toted my treasures home, and over the course of a week or so, slowly began cleaning up the dusty old items one by one and having fun figuring out how to arrange the cool new stuff in my house.  One day, I decided to clean a couple of matching framed pictures that were really dirty.

Here they are (all cleaned up):

(Trust me; they look better in real life).

Anyway, these pictures were really filthy with years and years of layers of dust, dirt, spiderwebs, and grime from being in Me-Maw and Pe-Paw's garage for no telling how long, so I took one of the pictures, gathered up some cleaning supplies and tools, sat the picture in my lap, flipped it over, and proceeded to pry up the prongs using a flat-head screwdriver so that I could take the back cardboard cover off (they're just those cheapo frames).  I was going to take the glass completely out so that I could give it a thorough cleaning front and back.

Well, when I lifted the cardboard backing off, I saw a blank sheet of white paper.  Assuming it was just one of those 'filler' things, I picked it up to set aside, but I noticed that the other side of the sheet had something on it.  I turned the sheet of paper over to look, and immediately began to laugh.  It was the dorky sample picture that comes with the frame when you buy it in the store, and the people posing on it were hilarious!  I found a date printed on the bottom of it, and it said Copyright 1986!  Check it out!:

Dig that 'feathered' hair...(on BOTH of them)...!

LOL!

After I got done gawking and laughing, I started to resume disassembling the picture for cleaning.  But lo and behold, there was yet another white paper that had been beneath the silly one pictured above.  Wondering how many crazy layers there was gonna be to this whole mess, I lifted that paper up and flipped it over, and BAM!  A portrait of this little girl obviously from the '80s was staring me in the face!:

'LOL...Hello!'

I was dumbfounded.  Who was this kid?  Then I realized that she was probably around the same age as me (or maybe just a year or two younger) -- that means that she's around 35 now!  Then I thought it was kinda sad that her portrait had been forgotten in this old frame.  After I reflected on it a while, I wanted to see what else was in this crazy picture frame.  Underneath the girl's portrait was...what?...a page from a 1987 wall calendar?  Yep, that's what it was!  And on the flipside of the calendar page?  This picture:

So this 'picture' wasn't technically a 'picture' at all; it was just a page torn off of a wall calendar from 1987 that somebody liked, and framed over top of what was probably a portrait of their kid (or grandkid)!  It was like a weird vintage lasagna -- layers and layers from the mid-1980s!

Even so, I still liked the picture, so torn-off wall calendar page or not, I finished cleaning it all up, and put it back together (minus the crazy 'example' picture and the little girl's portrait)!

Well, after finishing that, I still had this second matching picture to clean up:

I wondered if it would have the same silly 'example' picture left inside of it.  Then I wondered if the second picture had another kid's picture left inside of it.  I laughed to myself, thinking it would be really funny if this one had a little boy's picture in it.  So I eagerly began taking it apart, and, sure enough...BAM!:

I couldn't believe my eyes.  And I laughed and laughed and laughed!  Not only did there turn out to be another kid's picture in the second frame, but I had thought it would be really funny if it was a boy, and there he was!  And just look at his expression!  It's like he's sitting there thinking it's just as funny as I thought it was!  He's all like, 'Tee hee hee; I've been hiding back here waiting for you to find me for 28 years...gotcha"!  ;P

My guess is that the kids are probably brother and sister, and that their parents or grandparents just left their portraits in the frames when they put those torn-out wall calendar page/pictures over top of them back in 1987, and forgot all about them.  Then I guess the pictures traveled around who knows where, for no telling how long, before Me-Maw and Pe-Paw probably picked them up at some yard sale or flea market somewhere who knows how long ago.  I never saw these pictures actually hanging up as decorations in Me-Maw and Pe-Paw's house; I never even saw these pictures before I discovered them stashed behind some other cruddy framed pictures in their garage several weeks ago while cleaning.

But who are these kids?  Where are they from?  What are they doing now?  And would they think it was as funny as I did that their old portraits from 1986 gave me a hilarious surprise?

I guess we'll never know...!  :)