I went to a wedding in the early 1990’s that had a disposable box camera on each place setting at the reception. I had never used a box camera before.
These were our generation’s version of today’s cell phone camera.
We didn’t take selfies… we took usies.
I was digging through old photos last night looking for a photograph from one of my Mardi Gras parties in the mid-1990’s. I always had a fresh disposable camera nearby. I took them to parties, tailgates, sporting events, road trips, concerts, and even a bar mitzvah.
They made it easy to capture memories. I could spend a fin at Walgreens, drop it off at the photo shop in the lobby at the Board of Trade…
…and get this, they could get my film back to me the same day. I could drop it off before the market opened and pick it up after the closing bell.
Much more convenient than dropping it off at the Photo Hut and waiting two weeks. Maybe not the immediate gratification the world has today, but we didn’t know any better.
I came across some photos from a trip in the late 1990’s. I remember one of the guys in our group bought one of those new digital cameras.
He bragged about how he spent five hundred bucks and how awesome it was. He scoffed at the Kodachrome box sticking out of the top of my shirt pocket.
He was a jagoff that was never invited to join us again.
The thing is, thirty years later, my photos look just as good. You couldn’t tell if they were taken on a five-dollar camera or a five-hundred-dollar camera.
The memories are worth a million dollars.
I don’t know if there is a lesson here, but I do know this, I’m glad I made it a habit to always have a disposable camera at my disposal.
Misty, water-colored memories of the way we were.
Looks like the Sox are dragging the Cubs into the shitty baseball category. At least this summer we have a 250th birthday to celebrate, because the baseball season is going to suck.
Get your taxes done… and go find the gusto and astonishment that mid-April brings.
