A warm night after a warm day. This is fall as it’s supposed to be, except for the large grade-A jumbo egg on my chin. Turns out I am slightly allergic to bee stings, because this one just got large and slightly numb. Well, nothing to do but wait for it to go down, and hope my family stops looking at me and suppressing their laughter. Really. My wife has the sympathetic expression you would want, but it’s mixed with a form of scientific curiosity I can do without.
Part of the problem may have been sleeping with my chin on my forearm, which seemed to move the venom around. Also, the stinger didn’t come out. Also, a goddamned bee bit me.
I apologize for the language, but I look like those kids in the old comic books who had a tootheache, with a big bulge and jagged lines coming out of their heads to indicate pain. I should be wearing one of those jaw-diapers with a knot on the top.
Other than that, Monday at its finest; I like Mondays. The only day of the week I don’t like is Wednesday, because everything piles up into one large bolus the size of a swollen bee-sting. I finished my work, drove home to be home when daughter gets home, after which it’s homework for her and more work for me. Today, however, Jasper heard me go outside to sit on the steps, and insisted he come out and wait. Basic dog assumption: wherever you are must be more interesting than wherever they are. So he sat in the sun and looked handsome.
It’s a lovely time of year at Jasperwood. They’re all lovely. Doesn’t make me wish I lived in one of those Dream Houses at all. Although I wonder what I would do if I won the lottery. First of all, I’d be surprised, because I don’t play the lottery. But once I had a dream that I would build this house elsewhere, with modifications – say, build every room 25% larger. Which would be just weird at first, when you think about it: so, we shrunk? But I just love the floorplan here. There’s nothing special about it, but it’s unique, and I’m used to it, and there are clear psychological demarcations between the rooms. I don’t like the places with flabby spaces that bleed into each other, dammit; give me a room for this and a room for that, thank you. But I would also like an enormous screening room and a workout room and a pool. Also a bowling alley.
My wife said, correctly, that are lucky to be here for many reasons, partly because we are close to everything. WHAT? I said. I CAN’T HEAR YOU THERE’S A PLANE OVERHEAD. But she’s right; we’re close. But if I had my druthers I would live and work in a place that’s somewhat isolated, and so completely appointed I wouldn’t need to go out. I have no idea how long it would take before I craved to be somewhere more populated, but if I won the lottery I’d also buy a condo downtown, so there’s that.
Not on the list? Cars. I love old cars, but I would not go full Leno and have a barn full of cars. I’d be more likely to build a wing of the house with 30 pinball machines. Not really that much into transportation machinery – okay, okay, a helicopter, for those days when you feel like Hunting Man, and want to take the chopper up over the compound and plink away at the six or ten desperate criminals you have roaming the ground behind the electrified fence. Paintball, of course. And they’d be employees. There’s the whole 1099 thing to worry about at the end of the year, but you have people for that.
I know what you’re thinking: the chopper pilot lives on the grounds, waiting for your beck and / or call? No, I think that’s a bit much. I mean, he could, but that’s an extravagance. So you’d have to pencil in those sessions, which would mean you couldn’t just head up to blow off some steam. Takes all the spontaneous pleasure out of it, but you can’t have everything.
I had the most extraordinary thing happen tonight, aside from the monstrous swelling of my bite, which fills me with strange sensations of fear and power, as though I am becoming something both horrible and wonderful, with an interest in pollen and a shared collective unconsciousness rooted in the very essence of my DNA – I HEAR you, my Queen, I HEAR YOU
Sorry; distracted. I was tweaking the interface for a site, which of course led to the inevitable tweaking of the six subsites contained therein. One of them had to do with photos my Grandma took as a young girl. I’ve scanned more in the years since I put up the site, and have been meaning to do something about it. So. I redesigned it, then figured I should include a photo of her camera, which I have –
. . . and therein hangs a tale, too. I got the camera from my mother. I’d heard my cousin wanted to see the ancient Brownie, since he was a camera buff. Last October I found myself in a tiny church on the plains for my mother’s brother’s funeral at the church where my Grandma had her funeral. Her plot’s out back. I visited them all before I went inside for the latest installment. My cousin was playing the piano for the service, and afterwards we talked. We always got along. I always admired him. I mentioned the camera, and he said sure, whatever, whenever. Afterwards I got in my car and drove away and I wouldn’t see him again, ever; he died in a car crash a few months later.
So I’m redoing the site, and I wonder if the camera is still in the Closet. It is. I take it out. I realize I never opened it up. I push this silver knob, pull that – nothing. I go on the internet, google the model number, and up pops an fargin’ instructional manual for the device. It’s a Brownie.
Scroll down . . . down . . . ah. “Depress the concealed button (Fig. 1)” I had no idea, it being concealed. Click- thunk – the front of the camera pops open, for the first time in decades. I read on, find out how to frame a picture through the viewfinder. I point it at the computer that has the picture of a photo she took 85 years ago . . . and press the shutter.
It still works. Or would, if it had film. The sound of that shutter was the best thing that happened today, really. When Grandma was a young woman she would have never imagined someone figuring out how to open her camera in the early years of the 21st century, and think of her, and what she saw through the viewfinder. Tomorrow I’ll put the camera in my daughter’s hands and show her the pictures, and I’ll probably get a “cool,” and that may be that, but what more can you hope for? If I knew someone would put my iPad in the hands of a great-grandchild, turn it on, and flick through photos I took on a trip, well, that would be enough. We hope to be remembered and we know we will be forgotten. All you can do is face the dusk and throw the ball as hard and far as you can.
On that note: some new North Dakota small towns on google; go here. For some reason on preview they’re all showing up blurry, but that may be a problem on my end. There’s also Comic Sins, HERE. Of course these things can be found at Flotsam, as well.
See you around in the usual places, folks. Have a grand day! By which I mean: BEE-FREE.
Pass it along, if you wish
70 Responses to Grandma’s Camera
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bgbear:
“Was you ever bit by a dead bee?”
No, was you?
Yeah. You know, you gotta be careful of dead bees. They can sting ya just as bad as live ones, especially if they was kinda mad when they got killed.
Google streetview still blurry.
My Grandfather grew up in Bowbells. Worked as a farmhand from a very young age. He probably never saw the inside of that bank.
Elizajane says:
Why is every one saying “bit by a bee”? When was “stung” replaced by “bit” in the bee lexicon? Was I behind the door again?
@Elizajane: I don’t think honeybees bite, but yellowjackets sure do! My mother swallowed one once (see above post) and it BIT her quite a lot – she said it was worse pain than childbirth! And this is the mother of seven!
Is it possible for a month-old sting to suddenly flare up just by thinking about it? About a month ago, I got attacked by a wasp when I invaded
its nestmy garden shed in search of a rake. Got me on the knuckle of my thumb, and it swelled up to the point that I couldn’t bend my thumb at all. Hurt for days, itched for over a week. Now suddenly I have an unexplained soreness on that thumb. I don’t remember banging it on anything in the past 24 hours, so I’m wondering if all this bee talk is causing my mind to revisit the sting.As a kid, I got stung a lot. They hurt, but didn’t last long and then I was fine. We had an old apple tree in the back yard, which meant bees everywhere from spring to fall, and I managed to get stung about once a year until I got old enough to learn to avoid them. The last time I got stung, I stepped on a wasps’ nest in the woods and got 2 jabs in the leg about an inch apart, swelled up pretty bad but didn’t have any lasting effects. That was over 16 years ago, and apparently my reactions to wasp stings got a lot worse over that time. Or maybe this one was just a nasty sunofabee. Whatever the case may be, I’m a lot more careful when approaching that shed now. Usually with a bug-bomb in hand.
@Kerry P. The lines I, and a couple of others, am throwing around, are from 1944′s To Have And Have Not so, at least alcoholic fishing boat crew were using “bit” over 60 years ago.
Not exactly an Avant-garde group so I think you are still hip.
O death, where is thy sting?
oh and as far as “what bit/stung me” my recollection is the bee stings do indeed sting, they are a sharp feeling where as wasp (yellow jacket) bites have a dull ache like someone hit you with a small hammer.
anyone else feel the same way?
bgbear: Nice Walter Brennan reference…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSgqrrWyF0Y
Lottery game: I’d pay everything off, travel for a year, then move to a good college town, buy a house and take random classes for the rest of my life. Whatever catches my attention.
What no pic of the beesting? After gentle washing with soap and water and sanitizing I used peroxide, you can put ice on it (to minimize the alergic reaction), and take an anti-inflamatory. My husband and both got I got stung after walking on a ground nest. I hadn’t been stung in so long I had to call the insurance nursing line cuz I didn’t know what to do. This is the advice she gave us. Hope you feel better soon!
The pictures in the NoDak site appear blurry from the reader’s side, as well. And none of the regular Street View interactive tidbits (zoom, move around). Just a blurry photo.
I have actually noticed that while working on my own blog (sorry for that kinda-plug, although I have to admit that your work here and in your other sites is somewhat of an influence/inspiration) – not just in previews, but also in posts that have already been published, and where it worked fine before. So I’m thinking the problem is probably on the Google side of things. Hope they fix it soon.
@bgbear: “anyone else feel the same way?”
I agree. Two years ago, we had a tree blow over in the backyard during a windstorm. It came to rest on top of my wife’s beehive. Didn’t do any damage, just knocked the top cover askew.
I took a chainsaw to the tree, then thought “Well, I think I’ll fix the cover on that hive.”
Big mistake–suddenly a couple dozen honeybees were after the giant who was attempting to invade. I got stung a half-dozen times, on my hands, arms, and forehead. (Of course I wasn’t wearing any protection–I’m a man!)
Hurt like a SOB, and itched for days. But not the same hammer-blow you describe from yellowjackets.
James
I have the film for your camera or at least part of a roll. Recently went through an old box of childhood ‘stuff’ that you would love. Tenth anniversary Disneyland momentoes, Peter Paul and Mary signed program from the Greek Theater, the usual. Lo and behold, I find my old childhood Brownie. Looked in the little red window that tracked what shot you were on and saw a 6. Five shots taken, 7 left. Rewound the film and took it out. What’s on those 5 from fifty years ago? Mom, dad, my dog ‘Lady’, this twelve year old in a sixty-two year old body wants to know. Anyone out there know how to get old Kodacolor film developed?
Have a Brownie Hawkeye circa late 50s and I looked into it once, 127 film IIRC, and there are suppliers on web and you can mail for processing.
Also, I recall that if you have an old roll it helps because they can use the old film roll cartridge to re-load new film.
Oops, lileks/pieter’s cameras are probably older and use different (117?) film.
again, I think an old cartridge helps.
creaky old film loses its image. over time, the tagged ions among the halide (usually silver nitrate in film, either silver nitrate or silver chloride in print paper) revert to inactive state. within 3-5 years, it’s pretty much not going to be a recoverable image.
which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
the major difference in variations of Kodacolor negative film is the dye chemistry. I’ve been able to move back and forth between slide and negative material/chemistry, including between E4 and C41, although the color palette can require some most unusual filter packs in printing.
take it to a place where they still hand process or have a machine that can handle 120/620 width film, and just tell ‘em to run it, because I have (flip flip flip) several Presidents who want to see what happens.
hey, worst that can happen is it’s a blank roll. I ran into one, and a roll of ghosts, down in the basement that had to be 20 years old.
Check this out:
http://www.mcnerneyisland.com/
A magical place, and my visit there was once of the happiest days of my life! Charming owner. Interesting guy, Jim McNerney. And he’s from NJ!
Thanks for posting that Kerry, as it was quite intriguing to me; not only is that my family name, but the owner shares a name with one of my uncles. I’m definitely sending this link to some family members.
Lottery Fantasy:
Lots and lots of naughty words
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/5/i-won-the-lottery-716637.html
Rollfilm cameras…
The first camera I ever handled was my grandmother’s Kodak Brownie Target Six-20. Which used 620 rollfilm, invented by Kodak for that camera line in the early 1930s. Which film nobody makes any more.
Thing is, 620 film is the same as 120 (which is still made, mostly used by professionals and slightly-mad amateurs), just on slightly smaller reels. So, if you’ve got a 620 camera, you can get some 120 film, unroll it from the 120 reels onto the 620 reels. In the dark. And vice versa (in the dark) before you send it off for processing, if you don’t develop your own film.
220 film is the same as 120, but twice as long, although the paper backing is in two parts, one at each end of the film.
All of them, 120/220/620 are/were 60mm wide. Pretty successful, what with 120 being introduced in 1901.
126 film was a cartridge format for the Kodak Instamatic cameras, starting in the early ’60s, and 110 was its minime.
127 was a rollfilm format, 46mm wide, produced from around 1913 until about 1995 (except by Efke). Killed by 126 and 110.
135 is plain old 35mm film.
Kodak drove the photo industry for a long time; it remains to be seen whether or not they’ll survive long in the digital age.
Heck, who knows how long film will hang on in the digital age? But it’s not dead yet.
For what it’s worth, I never play the lottery and yet I won $1 (yes, a whole freaking dollar) in the New York State Lottery.
While working at WordPerfect back in the day, I did a small good deed for a man living on Staten Island, and as a gesture of thanks he sent me a NYSL scratch ticket. Turned out to be good for $1. Just for kicks, I sent in the ticket and received a check good for the promised dollar. I never actually cashed it; the thing remained pinned to my office bulletin board for as long as I worked there.