“Only an unambitious soul is content with the simple Brownie.”

(Thomas Beresford, in Agatha Christie’s “The Affair of the Pink Pearl”)

In “The Affair of the Pink Pearl” by Agatha Christie, (read for Harper Audio by Hugh Frasier and listened to by me so many times that I practically have it memorized), Tommy is telling Tuppence about his new camera, and she responds with “I know those kinds of lenses. By the time you’ve adjusted the shutter, and stopped down, and calculated exposure, and kept your eye on the spirit level, your brain gives out and you yearn for the simple Brownie.” Tommy’s sardonic reply is, “Only an unambitious soul is content with the simple Brownie.”

A few years ago, I came across this “essay” I had written in January of 1967. You can see in the bottom right corner, that my mom had written the date and “3rd grade”. Apparently, we were supposed to finish the sentence, “The nicest thing about Christmas…” You’ll notice that my teacher wrote “Indent first word” at the top. It may be kind of hard to read, so I’ll transcribe it for you. It says: (sic) The nicest thing about Christmas was when I opened my present from mama and daddy and found a camera. It goes on to say that the nicest thing about Christmas vacation had been that “we went to see my cousins and they gave us a cat to take home.” After pointing out that the fact that our dog didn’t like the cat and the cat didn’t like the dog “was not such a nice thing”, I went on to say that another nice thing about Christmas “is the day after Christmas, which is my sister’s birthday.”

On the left, you can see a photo from Wikimedia commons that was used in this fascinating article I found online. On the right, you can see mine. It shouldn’t surprise you that I still have it, but you may be surprised to know that I knew exactly where to look for it, too. And I can’t say that for most things in my house, organized though I am.

I decided to give my “simple Brownie” its own little photo shoot. Here it is with some of the vintage items on the blue dresser in the front living room.

You’d have to have known my dad, but you can see he put my name, as well as my initials, on the bottom with a handy engraving tool.

It also appears to still have film in it. No telling what that’s about. I doubt if the film is still good, but wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

This was my first photo album, and it is through it that we are going to be taking a trip down “memory lane”.

I used black and white film for the most part. My parents said that color film was too expensive for me to be using when I wasn’t experienced in photography, and that color photos would fade out with time anyway. They were right on both counts. But that didn’t keep me from becoming the one person in the family who pretty much has to take pictures of everything. And it’s so much easier now that we carry our cameras with us all the time, disguised as phones.

It may not surprise you to see that a large number of my photos were of cats. We had so many cats growing up that I had plenty of opportunities to practice on them. The one at the top left didn’t have a name on the back, but the others, going clockwise, were Butterfly, Charolette (sic) and Murphy.

I don’t know who the little boy holding the kittens was, but he lived next door to my grandma Anderson in Bakersfield. Notice how nicely I centered him behind the pole. Our dog, caught here in an action shot, was named Hündchen, which translates roughly to “little dog”. His mother had been “smuggled” on the plane from Germany in a knitting basket by some Army friends of my parents in 1958. I kind of was, too, if you think about it, but not in a knitting basket. That’s because I was born three months after my parents returned to the U.S., and my mom always told me that technically she was too far along to have been permitted to fly. I don’t know what the rules in 1958 were, but I’m guessing they didn’t have to hand over the Army doctor’s letter saying she wasn’t supposed to travel, having reached the 6th month of pregnancy. Three more months and I would have been born in Bamburg, which would have been interesting. I still have the letter, by the way. But then, you probably guessed that.

I can only imagine that I must have climbed a tree to get this shot. At least by then I knew how to I spelled “Hündchen” correctly. Depending on the device you’re reading this on, you may have to zoom in to actually find the dog in the photo. He’s pretty much right in the center.

While we’re on the subject of Hündchen, this is an “essay” from 1965, when I was in the first grade. It looks like my attempt at phonetic spelling met with some measure of success, if I do say so myself.

Here, I was guilty of the one photographic mistake that I can’t stand to see, and that is letting my shadow get in the picture. Years later, from 1991 to 2015, when I was the yearbook advisor for the Christian school, I developed a pretty good eye for what’s in the foreground and background, and whether the light source is in front of or behind the subject. I also learned that whatever you do, you should never try to take a picture of people at a table if anybody is chewing.

Unlike my predecessors in “The Unknown Swede”, for a time I was pretty good about labelling my photos. Still, with what I know now about family history research, the caption “Grandma and Grandpa Johnson” doesn’t do much to narrow anything down. At least I had written where it was taken, and specified that they were in their yard, as opposed to someone else’s. So that’s a start.

Some teddy bears that Grandma Johnson had for the grandkids to play with when they came to visit.

The back of this one says “Daddy”. Another attempt at labelling, but technically this could be anybody. You can go back and see “Daddy and Some Babies” for more info on how my family traditionally labels photos.

Morro Bay, CA, where it would have been nice to have had color film. Still, by now it probably would have faded to where it looked like what you see here anyway.

Uncle Danny’s old car any my old bike. The car is parked in the vacant lot next to our house. We always just called it “the vacant lot”, and as kids we used it as an extension of our own yard. There’s a house there now, but it was where we learned to ride our bikes and stepped on lots of stickers with our bare feet.

Uncle Danny, Aunt Marguerite, and Cousin Mark several years later with their “new ” car, once again parked in the vacant lot.

Mrs. Sagaser was the teacher who told me to indent the first word in my paragraph on the nice things about Christmas.

While I had my brand-new camera at school, after taking my teacher’s picture I got this amazing shot of a pigeon on the roof. What’s amazing is that it made it into the album in the first place. One picture that wasn’t in the book but would have made it to this post if I’d been able to find it, was labeled “the pigeon’s grave”. It was from the time we found a dead pigeon and had a funeral for it and buried it in the vacant lot. Just the thought of that makes me want to go wash my hands!

Parades were always photo worthy. The correct spelling of “Colinga” is “Coalinga”. Coalinga was the closest town to Avenal where you could go to “big” stores like JC Penney. At 17 miles down Highway 33, it took about 17 minutes to get there, which may sound like a lot until you remember that it can take well over 17 minutes to drive across Fresno depending on the traffic.

Here are two more that probably shouldn’t have made it into the album. Two troll dolls, apparently without their clothes, and a cat that you can barely see under the huge leaves of a plant in the back yard. We know the trolls had clothes, because we’ve seen them in “Under the Bridge”, and is that the very edge of my shadow in the bottom right corner?

I think it was fourth grade when we studied the California missions. These are from a school field trip to the San Antonio mission. Some scenery from the bus, and a nice fountain at the mission.

Our kindly tour guide, standing patiently for his portrait, and what I guess was the bottom of the fountain.

These two are on a par with the pigeon on the roof: a cow by a salt lick from far away and “a tiny ground squirrel”. If you can find the ground squirrel you win the prize!

Trying out my creative skills on one of our childhood friends and a tetherball pole.

From a rare family trip to Dinky Creek and Shaver Lake. I actually like the Dinky Creek one for the misty look and the truck on the bridge.

Another time when it would have been nice to have color. This was the second of the two times I’ve been to Texas. Looking at the date, I realize that by then I’d had my “simple Brownie” for eight years, and it was still going strong.

There’s no telling how much longer I would have used it, but around that time the Kodak “Instamatic” cameras came out, and with them film cartridges and flash cubes. Soon we had arisen to an even higher level of photography. Something “kids today” will never understand. . .