When she was young, my daughter Celia once asked me if the past was lived only in black-and-white. It was a good question, I thought, since that’s the way she’d seen it depicted in old photographs. 

But as those of us who’ve lived in the past (at least her past) can attest, it happens in color. 

I spent a few hours in the black-and-white past last night, perusing a book of photographs of Lexington, Kentucky. Many of the snapshots were taken in the 1930s, when my parents were children. There were the storefronts (including Leet’s, owned by my great uncle), the interurbans (street cars that went into surrounding small towns) and the intersections (Main and Lime) of their youth.

While the photos were sepia-toned, I reminded myself that Mom and Dad saw these sights … in color.