I don’t know how many Brownie Hawkeye Flash cameras Kodak sold between 1950 and 1961, but I’m sure it was a helluva lot. The camera arrived with what turned out to be a roll of Verichrome in it.

I don’t know how many rolls of Verichrome Kodak sold, but I’m sure it was a helluva lot. It was my favorite film but now it’s gone.

Processing a roll of found film is a gamble. Much of the time I get nothing. When I see images on the curled film, it feels pretty good.

Pictures of Christmas trees with unopened packages populate countless family photo albums. The presents are pretty all wrapped up in colored paper and someone spent a lot of time wrapping them. They need to be documented.

The practice of placing little statues and stuff (knick-knacks ?) on tables designed for them, has diminished since these shots were taken.

There’s very little room on that table on the right. There’s no way small children live in this house. The dogs still have ears and the dancing figures can still stand upright. You need to dust under knick knacks now and then. What were we thinking ?

The china cabinet has a “COFFEE HOUND” cup in it.  Gag cups still exist but they were a real
 novelty in the olden days. My aunt Betty had a coffee cup made to look like half a toilet.  “For my half-assed friends” was printed on it.

I think I see Mary and Joseph attending to duties at the manger between the telegraph poles. I’m not  sure though. That could simply be a wise man bearing a gift. I think that’s “The Blob” leaning on the pole to his left.

There’s a race car waiting at the train station.

Coffee, milk and cake. This certainly is a wild bunch of women. It appears that the lady in the dark sweater at the center of the photo has suddenly found bird droppings in her cake. She became the first documented case of Avian Influenza.

Parakeets were a staple of middle class America in the 50’s and 60’s. We though they’d sing for us but they rarely did. There are a couple of them buried behind the house I grew up in.

What is it in the human genome that causes most grandmothers to look like the one receiving her present ? I’m betting the box contains a cotton night gown. Light blue with little red flowers around the neck and on the hem.

That’s  granny’s younger sister “Trudy” on the couch with her. She’s married to Rudy. That’s a Haley Mills hairstyle on the young lady to the right. Watch that elbow ! It’s damn close to  the knick knacks, kiddo.

Blinded by the flash