Tag Pictures

Frozen in Time. Or Space. Or Neither?

Michael 3 Comments

I should be celebrating still. Last week was my birthday. A dozen years ago I’d still be celebrating a week later. No, that’s not accurate. “Still” makes it sound like I spent an entire week in revelry. Well, I was younger then. At least by 12 years. That would have made me 50 which contrary to the teachings of 30 and 40 year olds, is the age when one is truly still young enough to get into trouble but old enough to know better but not quite yet to not care. But no, not even those dozen years ago was I inclined to spend a full week in celebration of aging. So “still” is still not right. No. I should have said my birthday was last week and a dozen years ago I’d be celebrating it again.

“Still” might seem to make more sense than “again” but trust me, “again” is right. Of course, I’d be happy to explain.

A dozen years ago we’d have taken pictures. A week ago we also took pictures. A week ago, among the 20 or 4,000 pictures taken, I saw 4. Then, of the 12 or 15 taken I would have seen 12 or 15. But not for a week. A dozen years ago we were still taking pictures with analog cameras and film that required developing know how (or at least the corner drugstore).

Here’s what usually happened.  Regardless of whose birthday or anniversary or whatever and the actual date of aforementioned whatever, the celebration happened on Sunday. People worked during the week. (Actually I worked on Sundays also but that never seemed to alter the pattern.) (Hmm.) Pictures were taken, cake was cut, more pictures, gifts, more cake, more pictures, cake, pictures, wine, cake, pictures, etc., more pictures, wine, pictures. Film was rewound, removed from camera, and placed in prominent position to be dropped off for developing Monday morning. Monday film was forgotten due to Monday morning rush to get out the door. Tuesday film was forgotten due to it being Tuesday. Wednesday film forgotten due to everyone making bad camel jokes on the way out the door. Thursday film was remembered and taken to be developed! Decision making now entered the process. One hour, overnight, or standard. Couldn’t hang around for an hour and since we waited this long, what’s another day. Overnight please. Friday, now developed pictures forgotten due to TGIF. Saturday … ugh! Sunday, special trip made to pick up pictures, everybody gathers around, pictures passed about, celebration renewed!

More importantly, afterwards, sometimes weeks or months afterwards but eventually afterwards, the pictures were transferred to a photo album and placed on book shelf for future re-celebrations.

Last week, pictures were taken, phones passed around after any particularly good ones (four) then never seen again. [Sigh] But if you’re interested, you are welcome to come over and see pictures from my fiftieth. I know just where they are.

BD40Actually, this is from my fortieth. Seems I can’t find those from ten years later. I think we were using digital by then!

 

Say Cheese

Michael 12 Comments

I had my picture taken yesterday. I know, most people on the Internet seem to have a complete photo diary of their whole existence. I grew up with a Kodak Brownie. We took pictures only if necessary. Like on a vacation. In a different state.

The picture I he had taken yesterday was even more monumental than an out of state vacation. It was for my driver’s license. And it was about time too. The last time I updated my driver’s license was 4 years, 3 operations, and 100 pounds ago. I bore as much resemblance to my ID as …. let’s just say it wasn’t actually representative. In fact, the one time I actually needed a photo ID that anybody paid particular attention to, the nice TSA agent kept looking from it to me to it to me to it. Fortunately I had that renewed my passport two years ago which was after the 3 surgeries and 100 pounds. More fortunately I decided to bring it along with me even though I wasn’t traveling outside the country. Most fortunately that particular TSA agent was perusing my travel documents on the return portion of that trip and I really didn’t want to spend another night in New Orleans.

I figured something out on my way to the photo center. I was going for my eleventh renewal. Here ours renew every 4 years. That’s a lot of driving. And based on heads and shoulders at least, a pretty nifty photographic record of changing hair styles. Or it would be if they were on all my licenses. We only started using pictures on our licenses here in 1976 so my first couple documents were just black type on color coded card stock. Now it just so happened those license periods also coincided with my under 21 years.

DLIDs without photos are hardly identifying yet that was the standard in the dark ages of paper licenses. Of course that eliminated an entire cottage industry since it meant there was no need for a fake ID business. All you had to do was find an older somebody who wasn’t going out the same night as you who reasonably matched your basic info … height, eye and hair color, and sex. Sex is important. Having an older sister is of no benefit when you’re a younger brother.

But that won’t do today. Now there are pictures on licenses. And bar codes and holograms and for some reason a second picture. I guess that makes up for all the years there were none.

I figured I’m good for a while now. I have 4 new years on my driver’s license, 8 more years on my last password renewal, and no job and no school to go to that might require a photo ID card.

I don’t have to worry about a good hair day until 2022!

 

Fire Sale

Michael 24 Comments

If your house was on fire and you could carry one thing out of it with you, what would it be? A question like that has been asked for ages. In philosophy classes, on psych papers, over drinks at happy hour, in bible groups, at marriage counseling. It should be getting easier to answer. Or maybe not.

When asked the question, in public the answers all sound very altruistic. My baby. My pet. The picture of my long dead parents, long suffering spouse, long loved child. In private we’d probably say, grab the tablet, CD, or memory stick with all our family financial info and maybe the one with pictures too if possible, or the purse or wallet with driver’s license and the credit cards because who wants that replacement hassle right after the house burns down. No! Get the phone!

I really was thinking about this recently. If I could save just one thing, what one thing would I want above all that I may risk my life to get?

My grandparents might have had a really hard time answering. Both trunks of my family tree started their branches in this country during World War I. Although not yet the depression Era as far as the United States was concerned, the European bank scare of 1914 had a dramatic effect on the Italian economy and its people. When they emigrated they took their distrust for banks with them. If it was of value, it was in the house. A fire would be devastating to the future of the family unless all of the children, 12 on my mother’s side, were old enough, big enough, and strong enough to each bring at least one item with no room for sentiment.

By the time my parents were contributing boomed babies to the landscape, the American economy was on an upswing and even middle class families had nest eggs that could be proudly secured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Up to $10,000 per depositor at the time. Like now though, nobody but the very rich had $10,000 nest eggs. But they still didn’t trust everything to the banks. Safety deposit boxes were for rich people. Personal treasures and savings bonds purchased almost painlessly through the Payroll Savings Plan were secreted in a strong box, itself cached away at the back of a linen drawer, the bottom of a cedar chest or top shelf of a closet, or among the pantry items in the newfangled built-in kitchen cabinets. In case of evacuation, a responsible adult, probably the dad, was in charge of collecting the canned collectibles, while another adult of authority went after more sentimental treasures.

My generation was the tween of generations. Everything from the first half of my life is on paper, the last 2 or 3 decades could and does fit easily on a flash drive. I have a strong box but other than my passport almost nothing in there is irreplaceable. Almost nothing else in there is probably worth trying to replace. If I was running from a fire I have to pleasure of knowing that I could grab all the sentimental items like the picture album filled with a record of the daughter’s formative years and perhaps a cherished bobble head.

But wait! I should go get that passport. I doubt I’ll be doing much travelling in the future but just in case I win one of those crazy on line raffles for an all-expense paid trip to Iceland, I’d hate to have to decline because I’m waiting on replacement documents proving who I am and what I look like. So that settles it, pictures, passport, and a cherished bobble head.

My essentials

My essentials

Oh no. But wait again (he says somberly). Forget the albums. Forget the bobble head. Forget the passport. (I’m going to have to find a more readily reachable place for that.) I forgot even more essential, if not sentimental items that I have to have. I have them with me all the time so I sometimes don’t consider that I actually have to carry them for them to be with me all the time. One is my cane. I can walk without it. For about 20 or 30 yards. About 50 to 100 feet depending on the day. That might get me as far as across the street from the theoretical blaze, but unless I’m planning on camping there forever, or unless I want to live the rest of my life 100 feet at a time, I better grab the cane.

That still leaves one hand free. Why not snag that cherished bobble head? Well…this a little personal. So much so that I don’t even tell people what’s in the bag I always have if someone who even suspects that it’s anything other than just a small day bag should ask. It’s a small bag but it’s huge in what it means to me.

You might recall from two posts ago that I am pretty much running on spare parts and that some of those parts actually are performing functions they were not originally designed to. And they require some help. That ever present bag carries the external pieces my spare-parted body needs to perform some otherwise routine internal functions. Yeah, that’s more than a little cryptic, but let’s say I can’t go but about 6 hours without it.

So. Two hands. Two things I sort of need more than pictures, bobble heads, or even passport. It looks like for me, like it was a couple of generations ago, there’s no room for sentiment.

Now I’m curious. What would you carry out?

 

Picture Perfect

Michael Leave a comment

I was watching an old TV show yesterday when it was noted that the then most popular hobby was photography. Then was in the mid-1960s.

In mid-60 I was still measuring my age in single digits and picture taking was a natural extension of any structured family gathering – birthdays, Christmas, opening pitch at the local little league. After the pictures were taken the film was developed and the printed pictures camerabecame the center of attention for an evening. They were passed around among the family, mounted in (or at least stuck between the covers of) one of the many family picture albums, and that’s where there seemed to rest until happily ever after.

Fast forward 50 years. That’s when my father passed away. I don’t know when the custom began or if it was/is even a custom but then it was a thing to display pictures on French memory boards and scatter about during the viewings. My mother and sisters spent hours going through albums and boxes and envelopes to select the images that represented as many of the 8 plus decades my father walked the earth. Pictures I remembered from those family “picture shows” were there and there were also pictures from milestone events since and not so milestone events before. Faces of relatives who had died before I was born shared space with the one of a much younger father. While we were occupied fitting remembered names to forgotten visages we became caught up in remembering lives lived rather than one so recently lost.

The interesting thing was that after the funeral and things returned to their normal paces and places, those pictures didn’t. Every time I stopped by at my mother’s house a new old picture found its way into a frame on a wall, a spot on the mantel, a corner of a mirror. “Who is that,” was answered with who, when, where, what was happening, what happened next, what everyone else in and not in the picture thought about it, turning a simple question into a wonderful story.

Today the most popular hobby is, depending on what site you pluck out of the 2 million or so that a search returns, either gardening or fishing. Photography is still pretty high on all the lists. A quick peek at Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or any other social site confirms that. Hopefully some of those images will last for 50 years so when today’s generation fast forwards the next mid-60s they will turn into their own stories. And rest happily ever after.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Get the Picture?

Michael Leave a comment

Last week I was digging under the bed to see what I could pull out of there. I try to clean out the “underbed storage” about every ten or fifteen years. I found a duffel bag that I was looking for just a few months ago. There were coin wrappers and bill straps; unfortunately they were all empty. I saw a shoe box with no shoes in it. And there was a camera bag. Not the big bag that had the big camera, lenses, flash and such. That was in the office. Not the little case that held the palm size digital camera that goes on vacation if I ever go on vacation again. This was a forgotten camera bag with a roll of film (actually a cartridge of film), a strange sized battery, and a claim check from an airline that has since gone out of business. No camera.

I don’t remember the last time I used a film camera. I do remember it was a 35mm camera and not one that used the 110 cartridge. I remember a camera that used that cartridge but I remember it from something like thirty or forty years ago. (I know I cleaned out under the bed since then. I know that because I’ve moved a few times since then.)

I might not remember that camera – and it’s a good thing the camera wasn‘t there because nobody probably still processes those little film cartridges – but I do remember that I used to take quite a few pictures and actually displayed them. I had pictures on walls, on end tables, in bookcases, on desks, even stuck to the front of the refrigerator in magnetic picture frames. Still do. I’ve slowed down in picture taking. Lots of people today take many more pictures than I ever did. But how many of those pictures ever end up as photographs.

So many pictures get taken and are posted somewhere electronically. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I’ve always thought of a picture as an opportunity to remember someone or something. At work I had pictures on my desk, file cabinets, and walls. They were of my daughter, of She and me, of people from work doing fun things. They were snapshots of things to make me smile usually when I most needed a smile. I remember only three other managers in my building who had personal pictures somewhere in their offices.

Print a picture, pop a stick or chip in a printer at a drugstore, or download a few shots to a digital frame. Don’t make all of your future memories “images.” Take a photo every now and then.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

But a House is Not a Home

Michael Leave a comment

We aren’t rich.  Barring a hit on the PowerBall we’ll never be rich.  Our investments taken together aren’t very interesting.  In fact the only interest bearing accounts we have are our televisions on account of we’re interested in old TV shows and cable has them.  We like little extravagances like motoring in the countryside in He of We’s little convertible but it’s 15 years old and was bought used 12 years ago.  We have some spectacular accessories in our houses because we were able to buy them in remainder shops, on sale, or on sale in remainder shops.  Our most recent extravagances are the little fountains we bought for our respective decks.  On sale.  Our wealth is in each other, our families, and our friends.  And we’re happy with that.

But boy we’d love to be rich some day.  For whatever reason we have taken to Sunday afternoon drives in said little convertible through the said countryside which is really the wooded borders between affluence and more affluence.  We like to look at the big houses and the way they aren’t as well landscaped as ours which we do ourselves.  It was on one of these drives that we sort of got lost.  We almost always have a good sense of where we are.  Whether it’s in a subdivision or an unincorporated township between hither and yon, we know how to read legislative route signs, can tell east from west, and have lived where we live for the better part of our adult lives.  The best part of our adult lives has been since we met each other but that’s a different post.

On this trip we were lost.  We knew from the signs that we were closer to more affluence rather than your garden variety affluence and when we drove past the horse farm we finally had most of our bearings back where they belonged.  In fact, it was just past the horse farm that He of We turned left onto a road we had never even heard of yet alone been on.  To the right of the car was a garden variety Mini-Mansion (not to be confused with a McMansion which isn’t one at all and yet again a different post).   And that’s when He or We mumbled, “Oh.  My.  God.”

“It nice, isn’t it?  A little plain though,” She of We responded.

“No, not there,” He of We literally stammered.  “Up ahead.”

And up ahead was just the peak of a roofline that screamed castle.  As we climbed the little knoll, more of the roof, or of the roofs came into view, then the stone, and the windows with their beveled glass and cross-shaped mullions, and the second floor windows, and the first floor cap, and the doors and fence and the biggest house, by far the biggest house we had ever seen.  There was a fountain in front that wouldn’t be out of place in front of a Las Vegas casino.  As we drove past we saw appendages angle from the back corners and out buildings larger than most of the Mini-Mansions that shared this short street.  We were in the land of million dollar houses and this made them seem small, very small.

We really needed to find out more about this building that was larger than most country club club houses in the area.  And find out we did.  Later, when we got home, the county assessment site obliging told us that we had been parked outside a 34 room, 30,000 square foot home with 12 bedrooms, 21 full or half baths, sitting on 6+ acres and valued at $9.5 million.

But back on that road, as we rounded our way around the cul-de-sac, another car approached.  A dark car.  A black car.  With dark windows.  Black windows.  The kind of car that would make you think Guard Patrol.  He of We did think it and thought it out loud just as She of We was saying “Slow down, I want to take pictures.”

“But it’s a patrol car,” He of We said.

”No it isn’t.  And if it is, what can they do.  Stop here, I have a good shot.”  And we stopped.

The black car circled behind us, stopped, then slowly pulled alongside us.  Slower still they passed us, pulled in front of us and stopped.  The heavily tinted window slid down.  And then the passenger leaned out the window and snapped some pictures of her own.  Just another sightseer in the land of more affluence.  Right there, in front of us.

And in front of that structure, among the million dollar houses, in our little car, we looked at each other and said, “Nice fountain.”

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?