Electrician's Tape

During February 1900, Eastman Kodak introduced a simple, cheap camera at a cost of one dollar. As the camera was designed and marketed for children, it was called a "Brownie". Brownies were the characters in children's books written by Palmer Cox during the 1880's.

I don't remember who it belonged to, but the ole ranch hand had access to a Brownie during the late 1950's. On extremely rare occasion, he also cabbaged onto a gift roll of 110 film. Many were the hours spent carefully selecting the right angle, light, perspective, and scene composure of a chosen subject matter. No doubt my "work" would adorn the pages of treasured photo albums for generations to come.

The only snag was that I NEVER had the dough to get the film developed.

About 20 years ago I found four or five rolls of my old black and white film with some electricians tape holding each roll together. On a whim, I sent the rolls to a lab for development. The days before arrival of the photos included eager anticipation of the images so treasured in my youth.

Alas, it was not to be. The lab dutifully "developed" the pictures and charged accordingly, but each shot was simply blackness. The historical record of my artistic visualizations were lost forever.

However, the good news is that a mere 50 years later the "hero" of our story recovered sufficiently to once again wade into the shark infested waters of photography. That's right sports fans, the ole fat boy coughed up enough change for one of them fancy digital hoochies with enough buttons on it to strangle a peach orchard boar.

This puppy has a memory card that holds 1000 images that can be ogled without need for development labs (or electrician's tape!). Make a mistake, don't like the shot, just feeling frisky? Hell, just hit the "trash can" button and those pixels are history.

The best news: the machinery makes the operator look like a pro when he ain't always sure which end is up?

The less than best news:

1. The Brownie is now a "blackie".
2. The cost has increased 40,000%.
3. Kodak's brain child has evolved to a computerized hurdle for the cyberspacially challenged.
4. The old dawg is learning the new tricks, but he shore is a slow learner?

All ya'll pray for the achievement of photographic excellence prior to the onset of senility for yours truly.