The Brownie Hawkeye Flash is a mundane, common camera. Kodak sold millions of them. Even mint specimens generate little interest in collectors. This little Hawkeye is particularly pitiful. It’s badly scratched and its broken handle is painfully twisted.
I treat all cameras with respect and when this wretched thing reached its handle toward me, I picked it up, blew off the dust and saw the number “12” in its red window. Maybe there are memories inside.
I paid the ninety-nine cents and left.
Paul Mertin 1908 -1973 – Alwine 1921 –
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Mertin died in ’73 as The War was windin’ down.
They buried him near the railroad tracks.
So he could feel the rumblin’ ground.
Shadow cast by a long gone friend, pictures never seen.
Flowers glowing in the sun.
Upon the grass, so green.
I think this must have been his house, antenna up real high.
So Paul could watch his baseball games.
He was that kind of guy.
A.C in the bedroom for when Alwine was hot
He put it on every night.
Mertin never forgot.
His next-door neighbors house I bet, they all miss him too.
He’d come over and have a beer.
Or just say…. “How are you ?”
#4377
