This was going to be about cameras...
...and then the writing began
Happy Sunday
It has been a busy weekend here in the land of rebooted rural reflections, but busy in a good way, as opposed to a hectic work week that left me frazzled and depleted.
Working backward, today is my rest day. Some might suggest that writing and catching up on household chores doesn’t really count as rest. I beg to differ — any time I don’t have to brush my hair or wear anything other than leggings and a tee-shirt to go for long walks with Nino qualifies as rest for me!
Saturday evening, my kids, grandson, and I went to the Asian Night Market in Louisville. As I mentioned last week, I love immersing myself in worlds other than the one in which I was raised. This particular event caught my attention because it focused on Asian cultures. Maintaining contact with my kids’ birth culture has never been the easiest thing to do here in the mountains, so when I find events like this, I try to attend if I can. The only hard part was driving home late at night, but I made it (obviously).
Saturday morning, I attended an online book club —in Spanish— through Lexington’s Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning. Spanish is my third language after English and French, so sometimes it gets short shrift. Although I am comfortable using it to teach the lower levels and watch TV, go out to eat, listen to music, or read, I don’t engage in enough sustained conversation about complex topics to maintain my proficiency at the level I’d like. I’m always telling my students they will learn faster and more deeply if they use the language to engage in the activities they love. It’s about time I took my own advice.
Friday evening, I got groceries and took a photography class through our local Whitley County Extension Community Art Center. I have played with photography off and on, especially when living abroad, which I once thought had all the interesting subjects (emphasis on “thought”). Now that I am a bit older and perhaps slightly wiser, I realize that photography is like writing — subjects abound everywhere. The extension agent affirmed this repeatedly throughout our first session, during which she also shared an impressive collection of personal cameras dating from the early 1900s to the present day. As I turned each device over in my hands, feeling the latches and mechanisms and looking through the viewfinders, I could not help but think of my grandfather, Ruth’s husband Bob, a self-taught photographer who took the pictures for their news articles and feature stories. I vaguely remembered scanning a column in which Ruth talks about buying a camera of her own, and thought aha! That’s my hook for this week’s Substack. I’ll write about photography and cameras.
Memory, however, can play tricks on a person, especially when that person is in her second half-century and has had a rather stressful week. When I located the column, I quickly realized it was about something very different than the camera itself. Before long, I found myself thinking once more about the excellent discussion launched by Sari Botton on her Oldster Magazine’s open thread: What Are the Parameters of "Middle-Aged"?
As I wrote in the comments of that thread, I always thought of my grandmother as old. (Maybe all grandkids do?) Since then, I have been in a more or less constant conversation with myself about what we mean when we say “old.” It can’t be grandmother status — she was 48 when I was born and I was not her first grandchild; I was 51 when my first and so far only grandchild arrived. Not old. It can’t be some number picked off a spectrum between 0 and 100 — read the thread referenced above for more on that. Above all, I now find it hard to apply that adjective to anyone who still wants to do all of the things, whether it be me with my classes and road trips and book clubs or my grandmother with all that and more.
Though I do not have an exact date for the following column, certain details tell me Ruth would have been in her late 60s or early 70s. I’m less and less sure that matters, but given my musings above, I thought I’d share.
And now, without further ado…
Rural Reflections
By Ruth Dennis
All I had expected to do was to purchase a camera1 — a camera that was not too expensive, a camera that would be easy, even for me, to operate. I had not anticipated a major introspection of me, the buyer.
I also, with my worldly innocence of today’s manufacturing patterns, was not prepared to see the inscription “made in Thailand.” Somehow I had expected it to have said “made in Rochester.”2
Then as I opened all of the packaging with the instructions and coupon for film voucher, I found a questionnaire from the Market Research Department. I read that it was important that I answer this survey since “the more information we have, the better we can serve you.”3
There were some basic questions as to where and why I had purchased this camera and if I had another camera. Then came some personal queries about my age, my marital status, my income, and my credit cards. Wait a minute — I did not take out a loan to buy this camera. Yes, I did use my credit card, but I paid off the charge at the end of the month.
Then came some very hard questions about me. I was asked to pick the three interests and activities in which I participated on a regular basis — from a selection of 48 interests.
That’s easy, I thought at first glance: I would have no trouble filling out this question — if I did decide to return the Market Survey. I quickly selected “grandchildren” — no question about an interest that was number one. But what about numbers two and three? The choices were getting more difficult.
I looked for gardening but was asked to choose between “house plants,” “flower gardening” or “vegetable gardening.”4 Yes, I am an “avid reader,” but I did not want to pass over the “devotional reading” category too fast.
There were many other entries that are important pursuits. I could not ignore the “watching sports on television,” especially if it is a Red Sox game. Needlework and knitting would have to be another. Walking being concerned about environmental issues, attending “cultural events” — all important (to me) pursuits, if not first, second or third choices.
The notation for antiques and one for collecting collectibles were among the favorite pursuits not so very long ago. For many years I was accompanying the antique buff of the family, attending shows and visiting shops wherever we traveled. Putting the adage “if you can’t change them, join them” to use, I became a collectibles collector, putting together assortments of tin boxes, of souvenir plates and spoons, and miniature pitchers and vases. Any plate or dish with a pink rose, whether it was in the antique or collectible designation, was fair game to me.
Camping and recreational vehicle travel would still be high on my lists of favorite pursuits, even though my participation has lessened markedly. And I still have an avid interest in foreign travel for that “sometime down the road.”5
So, who am I? Continuing the survey: Yes, I do have a microwave oven and I do subscribe to cable television. I have a dog and I support health charities. But, I am not a member of any frequent flyer program. I don’t have a cat and I don’t have a computer.6
What does all this mean about me as a person, as the information is fed into a gigantic computer program? Am I so very different or am I just like so many others?7
Thinking over the answers and trying to ascertain degrees of participation has made for an interesting afternoon. I wondered how come I had neglected such pursuits as “snow skiing,” “sailing” and “power boating” or why I had never done much “home furnishing and decorating,” to say nothing of “gourmet cooking/wines.” “Casino gambling” and “health foods” did not even receive more than passing notice as I reviewed the survey listings.
For now, “say cheese and smile.” I will be taking pictures and enjoying my camera.
As I was writing this, I realized she was likely purchasing her own camera because my grandfather passed in 1991, which meant he was no longer around to serve as family photographer. How did this not occur to me before now?
Whereas I, likely the only upstate New Yorker in the room Friday night, was not in the least surprised to see so many devices “made in Rochester.” Funny how the world works sometimes.
In retrospect, we all should have seen the creepy social media ads coming from a mile away.
Stay tuned for next week’s installment for more about gardening.
I find it profoundly sad she never got to fulfill this wish.
Jake, her black Lab, passed in January 1996; the loss of her husband and later her dog bookend the possible years for this column, as does the fact she did not yet have a computer or any cats.
See the comment above concerning social media. I cannot imagine what she would have had to say about it. While you’re at it, read Kentukis/Little Eyes. You might never turn on your device’s camera again (and no, the irony that our book club meets on Zoom is not lost on me)!