Nikon Camera

A week ago we bought a new Nikon camera.  Inside the box was a sweepstakes entry form that expired in 2008.  Hmmmmm.  Something told us we might just have gotten fleeced.  The camera proved to be unsatisfactory, so we returned it for a different model Nikon.  The sweepstakes form in this box expired in 2009.  Makes a person wonder if stores purchase truckloads of outdated cameras for a pittance and then pass them off to us average idiots at flying prices.  Nothing in the retail world would surprise us anymore.

Kodak Brownie

Nevertheless, we are the proud owners of a tiny digital camera, a far cry from Mom's boxy Brownie back in the 1950s.  This camera is about the size of our cell phones.  We need more pockets. 

The Nikon will go wherever we go, on the chance we'll come across some rare wonder of our small world.  Now days we download our photos onto the computer for easy viewing.  Before that, we took pictures, oohed and aahed at them when they were first developed, and then put 'em in a drawer or cardboard box only to be forgotten.  We pass pictures down to the generations following us until one day nobody cares anymore.  When I look through our old family pictures, I think to myself, "now, who is that?"  Why didn't someone write the names on the backside.

The first time we went to Sea World in Florida back in the 1970s, I came home with lord knows how many pictures of two dolphins.  I snapped pictures of them jumping out of the water, diving back in the water, grabbing for food, and more of the same.  I wasted my time and film taking so many pictures that I missed out on the actual show.  That was back in the days when everything outside our small town impressed us in amazing proportions.

When we sort through the hundreds of pictures we inherit, we gotta think of them as frozen moments.  Brief and special stories.  For them to eventually end up in a landfill is a sacrilege and dishonor to the pair of eyes who saw and saved the moment so others could see it, too.