The digna has a telescoping, focusing lens. It’s all metal and is capable of producing impressive photographs.

This digna made it to me via of Chicago IL. It came in a rotting canvas bag with a two rolls of exposed film in plastic tubes. The film held up wonderfully.


Children ask for so little. Love, security and maybe a beat up old tricycle. There’s not much rubber left on those wheels, but there’s enough for one more kid.

 I remember places like this. Silly little tourist traps near bigger tourist attractions. These places wouldn’t have a chance today. Americans need more sophisticated entertainment now. Blinking lights, beeping video games. That’s what we want.

This particular trap was near Lake Ozark MO. It’s a spoof on Dogpatch where Lil’ Abner and his family lived and feuded.

Boot Hill is in Tombstone Arizona, not Missouri. It didn’t matter though. Accuracy wasn’t important.

Cars were a big deal in the 50’s and 60’s. They had character. You could tell a Chevy from a Pontiac with a single glance. People posed with cars.  People stuck kids in front of them as an excuse to take more pictures of cars. This is a 1956 Packard Patrician. Packard went belly up in the late 1950’s.

Uncle Joe and his Packard

Uncle Joe is unpacking his massive Packard’s trunk. You can fit a lot of stuff in the trunk of a 1956 Packard. Although Uncle Joe wasn’t much for fashion he sure did love that Packard.

The young women in the above photographs are in their sixties or seventies now. It’s truly hard to fathom. I knew girls that looked like this when I was a kid. They seemed aloof, mature and impossibly beautiful. I didn’t dare speak to them.

Life is a long progression to whatever it holds for us at the end.

“It seems to me a crime that we should age.

These fragile times should never pass us by

A time you never can or shall erase

As friends together watch their childhoods fly…”

“Friends” – Elton John