I remember going to a state fair once and seeing a little old man who would try to guess your age for a quarter. He was tucked away behind the grand stand with nothing more than his folding chair, a box of prizes, and a small sign. I watched him for a while, snickering each time he guess someone’s age wrong and handed over their prize. I gave him my quarter, smiled as he made a guess about 5 years off,and walked away with my prize. The prize had probably only cost his about 10 or 15 cents, but that little business gem went right over my head at the time.

The only thing that story has to do with the picture is that I can relate to how difficult it was for him to guess a person’s age. I was pretty good with childrens’ ages when my own were young and provided me with a point of reference, but I was always bad with adults. Now that my children are grown I just suck at guessing ages. Period.

Right now I am trying to guess the ages of the children in the photo. I’ve recently discovered a third cousin, and she shared this photo with me. The only thing she knows about it, is that it is of my great-grandfather and some of his kids. Knowing the birth dates of all the kids should make it fairly simple to sort this out, but is hasn’t. I can’t figure out how old they look, so I can’t figure out how many years apart they might be in age. If you are good at this sort of thing I’d love to hear your guesses. It would be nice to figure out if one of the kids is my grandfather or not.