And, Happy 68th Anniversary, Mom and Dad
First published in The Study of Light, on Substack, on February 24, 2026
My folks had a beautiful love. It was deep and long and abiding, though it faded, and almost died along the way. It’s too long to tell it all, and besides, it’s their story, not mine. But Mom was especially fond of the SCOTCH part of it.
She’s been gone just two years. Dad, twenty-two years.
Before she passed, I was able to create a photo book of her life, for her. I did it in cooperation with with her father, my grandfather, Richard Hanger, who died thirty-five years ago. He was a professional photographer too. I have many of the portraits he made of her as a girl and a young woman, so his work makes up the most important photos of the first half of her life. Combined with my photos of her, and it makes a nice and comprehensive collection.
The subject of this post, the scotch ad, was part of that book of my mother’s life. It was made to look like it was from 1958, the year my parents were married.
The Story of the SCOTCH part:
Mom was working at IBM in Omaha. Answering phones. Dad was a new hire there. He was just back from the navy, or just out of college, not going to be a clergyman, going instead to work in the business world.
Dad noticed Mom. Mom did not notice Dad, not at first.
Someone in the office was getting married. So Dad asked Mom if she wanted to go to the wedding with him. Mom said “I’m already going with Bob. Why don’t you ask Mary?” “Because I want to go with you,” said Dad.
Mom went to the wedding with Bob, or whatever his name was. Dad, I don’t know if he went alone or with a date, but it didn’t matter. They sat near each other. They exchanged vibes. At the reception they were drawn together, just as the party ran out of liquor. Dad and Mom, Jay and Marge, volunteered to fetch a bottle. They walked to the liquor store and bought a bottle of scotch. They walked back, and on the way, they kissed. Passionately. Was it Marge or Jay who dropped the bottle? They can’t answer that anymore, so we have to guess. I’m guessing it makes no difference. The kiss was intoxicating. The bottle was dropped and it shattered. Who needs scotch?
A year later, (was it their wedding day?) they dropped another bottle of scotch.
The “ad,” made with Photoshop:
I combed several antique stores, looking for magazines from 1958, especially ones that had liquor ads. I located magazine images of cars of the day. I did not find any actual scotch bottles from that time, but I was able to ascertain that the Dewar’s label that is currently used was consistent with their label from sixty years ago.
Next I shot a city landscape that could pass for 1958. I went no further than the back of the Temple Theater in Viroqua, Wisconsin. I took photos there, and carefully edited out anachronistic elements, such as PVC vents coming out of the side of the brick building.
For the liquor bottle I bought a bottle of Dewar’s and created the tiny pink tax label you see on the top of the bottle, before I photographed it. I poured the contents out into a mason jar, then brewed a batch of iced tea, also in a mason jar.
For the pavement I had to find asphalt that did not have crack fillers or paint markings that would look out of time. The Vernon County fairgrounds were perfect for this. I laid the pieces of broken glass out carefully ( I had broken the bottle in a pickle pail, with a baseball bat, earlier), then dumped the tea on the ground. I took care to splatter it, for effect.
The image of my parents kissing was taken on the day of their wedding, by my grandfather. It was a dark and grainy black and white, one of my favorite photos of all. It was missing all the details below their knees, so I had to create their calves and feet, also with Photoshop. When I assembled all the elements of the ad into one image, I chose a 1950s-looking font (Palatino), and typed in some ad copy. I added the bagpiper that Dewar’s used in their old ads, and the result was a pictorial telling of their love story.
No AI was used in the creation of this image.