I ♥ LV YOU Intensely

I ♥ LV YOU Intensely

That is what was written in the dirt on the car of the bumper in front of me. It was a dark green Honda Civic, the updated version of what I used to drive. I don't think intensely was even spelled correctly. I sat at the light behind this car wondering about the writer, and then the receiver of this message. Did the receiver even know the message was there. I had never seen anything other than “Wash Me!” or foul words scrawled in the dust of a dirty car. I began making up stories about this pair. It certainly looked like a women had written it, especially with the placement of the heart. But, this also looked very much like a female driven vehicle. Intensely was written almost as an afterthought. It was smaller and I’m sure the writer got to a certain point when he/she wondered how to spell it but continued writing anyway. Maybe it was a woman’s car, and another woman had written this message on it, in adoration and in haste. Of course it could have been written by a young man too. If so would he have done this after a fight?

Finally the light turned green and we made our left turn into traffic. I continued to follow this loved person, still not knowing if it was a man or a woman. At last I had the opportunity to pass the car and did with some reservation. The moment I see this person, part of the mystery would be solved. Pulling up beside the car I see a pretty young woman with long straight blonde hair. Then it made sense. Of course she would be pretty, not just pretty, but gorgeous. Does she know how much she is loved?

A Moment in Time

This summer I found a roll (really a disc) of film in a camera from my teen years. To have it developed would mean sending it away to a photo lab in Pennsylvania and paying way too much money for it. But after speculating as to what was on this camera (circa 1987) and pressure and support from various people I decided to pay the money and find out. In the process I began looking through my collection of old cameras, which now totals nine, and found two rolls of film from my grandparents Platt 1963 Kodak Instamatic, one still inside. Then to my surprise I discovered a roll of film that was still in their 1933 Kodak Brownie. I carefully rewound the film in the Brownie and taped it closed. I found a pretty and strudy box to mail these mysteries in and soon they were off to Pennsylvania.
The package arrived this week and just like opening a time capsule, I quickly yet carefully opened it not knowing what I would find. I was disappointed to see my own camera disc was blank, as well as a few of the other rolls, but I then pulled out the prints. They were able to retrieve photographs from two rolls of film from two different cameras. When I pulled the first picture out I exclaimed to my five-year old son, who was in the room with me, “That’s me!” Indeed it was a photograph of me on my Granddaddy’s lap doing one of my favorite things, riding the tractor. The rest of the 19 images were of that day at his little farm with my brother and Granddaddy’s dog Panda or of my brother’s trip with the grandparents to the Midwest to see Herbert Hoover’s Presidential Library. They were all grainy black and white images printed in the square format popular in the 1960s. And one photo in particular, of Hoover’s birthplace was especially pictorial, with the quaint picket fence surround the small white clapboard house.
The roll of film retrieved from the 1933 Brownie contained only two photos most likely taken in the 1960s. They were taken almost as a test or a simple documentation of a mundane task. Maybe my grandparents were debating whether to continue to use the camera. They never threw things away. The photos show my grandfather washing his car, with the neighbor’s house in the background. My grandfather is dressed in a button down short sleeve shirt and long pants; casual wear for that time period.
I can only assume my grandmother was the photographer of all these photos, since she does not appear in any of the pictures, yet was most certainly by my grandfather’s side. This is unusual, as I remember my grandfather being the photographer, not her. My grandparents are gone now, so I can’t ask them about the photos or the cameras. I only wish I had developed these pictures several years ago before Grandmama passed away. She would have enjoyed them.

So no, I didn’t find anything outrageous or dramatic on these rolls. But sometimes the most important times in a person’s life are not the fancy parties or expensive vacations, but the simple days of sitting on a grandparents lap and learning to drive a tractor, petting the family dog, or simply washing the car.

Photo Friday: Erin's Rooftop on the Upper West Side

Panorama of Erin's Rooftop on CleVR.com