by James Lileks

^...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 a 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.^