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.

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.






































Just as she was about to read the name on the present she was holding, Granny was blinded by the flash. "This present is for little Judy, I think." When little Judy opened it to find a quart of Seagram's Seven everyone realized the present was for uncle Rudy who was sleeping in the other room.


That's little Judy behind granny just before the whiskey incident.









































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.










































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.




































































POSTSCRIPT:
 
Granny lived to the age of 103. Her knick-knacks wound up on Ebay and helped fund little Judy's alcohol rehabilitation program. She's been sober for three years. Uncle Rudy lost his job in the pet department at Woolworth's and Trudy left him for a shoe salesman at Tom McGann's.  Rudy fell asleep at the wheel of a golf cart and drown in a water hazard at the public golf course near his home. Trudy did not attend his services as she and her husband moved to Florida to pursue their love of art deco writing instruments.

The lady in the dark sweater attained some fame as the first person to die of "Bird Flu."