Time was, we lived in a world of sepia.

Why does everything in the past seem to be shrouded in dark and faded? Sepia, Latin for the melanin pigment from the ink of cuttlefish, stained whatever it touched. As dingy, dappled, dimly lit and dark as a brownout.

“And I looked, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud … and a brightness, the color of amber.” — Ezekiel 1:4.

A warm glow, snuff-colored, as brown as a berry, russet leaves after the first frost, a fireside chat to comfort us on the death of a friend. We loved brown-eyed-susans, Jenny with the dark brown hair, auburn or henna, Brown Betty cobbler, or a plate of warm brownies and a brown mule popsicle. Then, there are brown sugar, brown rice, brown bread and a brown study.

Ever wonder why kids in school never chose brown as their favorite color? Too busy brown-nosing.

From the Anglo Saxon brun, it is simply a mix of red, black and yellow. Maybe people are the same; don’t be left out, get in the mix. Of the 50 shades of brown, you could find taupe, tawny chestnut, rust, ochre, sienna and umber, both raw and burnt. All warm colors that make for the best monochromatic artwork.

Shibui in Japanese, a watercolor wash in sepia can add depth to any painting. Add a certain slant of light and you’re a Rembrandt.

Night Watch. Candlelight gives everything a warm glow. Real candles are as obsolete as real romantic dinners. Wood furniture, a thing of the past, comes in walnut, burl, mahogany, pecan or imported teak.

Plastic wood-grained floors don’t stack up as high as real tongue and groove planks. Yankee carpenters would be bored with that. We wore weekly polished brown leather shoes and belts. Mink pelts and stoles were rich in color.

The Browns are about as common as the Smiths and Joneses. Michael of Old Stone House fame had an umlaut over the vowel in Bräun that made it sound the same. He had several cousins with the same name that still give genealogists a hard time. Of his myriad descendants, most never left Rowan County and some live in Brown Acres or Braunville Estates surrounded by brown fields. Theo Buerbaum may have collected his tombstone for safe keeping.

What would Michael say to them today? What have they done with his 2,000 acres and his home place? Come find out.

We could use a little more brown in our mundane, mediocre, mindless mollycoddle, monotonous mortality without being morose or maudlin. Or we could all fade into the background of the big picture, without Facebook.

Florence Nightingale refused to be photographed, saying she wanted to be forgotten.

“What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me. … Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” — Robert Browning.

“In rainy autumn … brown as owls.”  — Dylan Thomas

We can take time to reminisce in brownness. All the while thinking, “Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Clyde is a Salisbury artist.