My First Camera

Well, this is where it all begins. What's that you say? The idea for me to write this series of stories came about because my sister Beth posted the picture you see at the top of this blog. It's a picture of Beth and me in the front yard of our house on Yampa Street in Craig. Another cold winter day in the high country town of Craig. I saw the picture and immediately began remembering events and stories about the elementary age boy they called Scinton Clinton, Me!

My Grandpa Coulson lived in Compton California. When my grandparents bought their house, Compton was a nice place to live. My Grandparents house was just north of Long beach, California. It was a typical house for that time and area. A small 2 bedroom house with a single unattached garage. This is what it looks like today:


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When I was in the 5th grade, the house was younger and in much better shape than it is now. You're probably wondering why I am talking about California instead of Colorado. Grandpa Coulson was my Mother's Dad. He was not a homesteader, rather, he drove a Street Car. And, NO, it was not named 'Desire'. My Grandpa lived in California with my Grandma Coulson. Duh! They were Jim and Flo.

Well that house you see on Pannes street was a place we would visit periodically. It was an 18 hour trip from Craig to Compton in those days. I've lived a lot of places over the years, but I have never forgotten the address of that house for some reason. Sixteen-five-eighteen Pannes (pan-ez). I've forgotten a lot of the addresses of places where I've lived...but never that one. Anyway, that old house on Pannes had 2 Magnolia trees in the front yard. Those trees dropped leaves every day of the year. I hated those trees! Hated raking leaves too. Grandma had her cherished rose tree in the front yard. In the back there was an Orange tree, an Apricot, and 2 plum trees. (Plum jelly is the best!)

In the Garage, Grandpa Coulson parked his white Studebaker. In that same garage, Grandma had a little stove and she would cook her yummy sweet pickles in there. On the back of the garage, Grandpa had built a little shop. Grandpa also built a dark room in that garage. Yes, a darkroom, and it was there he would develop his pictures. Now Grandpa must have had a lot of spare time, (or he just needed a reason to get away from Grandma, because he had a lot of hobbies. For example, Grandpa had a wood shop, his darkroom, his Studebaker car; he built a swing set, fenced and maintained a large yard, built an enclosed patio, watched lots of baseball, worked a job, played a mean game of checkers, and kept my Grandma happy. Whew!

But for this story, the darkroom gets the spotlight. My Grandpa literally took and developed thousands of pictures. We had boxes and boxes of pictures. Sometimes duplicate after duplicate of the same picture. And Grandpa had 10 grandchildren, so you can imagine all the photogenic faces he had to practice on. Those old pictures are still floating around today. I think visiting Grandpa gave me the itch to want a camera. And you know how an itch will bother a 10 year old boy. He'll scratch it till it bleeds.

Now our family had a camera mind you. It was a brand new fancy 35 mm camera my Dad had brought home one day. I'm sure it was state of the art for the mid 1960's. The trouble was, if everything was not just right...the pictures would not turn out right. Can't tell you how many dark or blurry pictures we had in those days. But rest assured the numbers were high. Of course the little 10 year old boy was not allowed to play with the fancy camera. So, Skinton wanted a camera! A camera of his very own.

I can't remember when I got it. Probably a Christmas or a Birthday present. But finally I had a camera of my very own. It is actually a miracle if you think about it. We were in hard times about then. My Dad was gone. My mom was raising us kids by herself. She was working full time at the Cashway Store, trying to keep food on the table. We had moved from our nice house on the west side of town to one of the oldest houses in town. My older brother was working at Bill's Supermarket after school and giving all the money to my mother to buy groceries. And somehow, in the midst of all the struggling to survive...the 10 year old got a camera. Thanks Mom.

It was a small rectangular box camera. About 6 inches long and 5 inches high, and maybe 4 inches wide as best as I can remember. It looked something like this:





I was looking for a photo online, but the I had camera was so old and such a cheap camera, I couldn't even find a picture of one that looked the same. I only took black and white photo's with it. I'm not sure if it would have taken color photo's. When you took a picture, you would hold the camera about waist level, look down into the top of the camera to see what you were taking a photo of, and then snap the shutter and manually wind the film to the next position. Not the greatest of quality...as you can see, but it was my camera, and I was taking pictures. I'm not sure where the money came from to develop them. I know I never had my own dark room. We did have a pretty dark garage however. But that's another story.

So, there I am in the cold Craig winter holding up my shoeless little sister in the Colorado snow. I don't know who took the photo, but I'm in it. And I was looking like the toughest, coolest, big brother in all the world. Well, except for the hair.

A boy and his camera, have you ever heard a snappier short story? I shutter to think what I shall capture in my little square head next. Stay tuned for more....film at 11:00. "Good Night Chet"..."Good Night David".