A Requiem for Film Cameras

24 Replies

 

A Requiem for Film Cameras

I’m sure not a single person’s debating
the merits of digital shots over waiting
a week to see whether the shots that you took
would be found to have merit or found to be crook,
but what is it digital cameras have not
that came with each new role of film that you bought?

Those nifty film canisters everyone got
that were handy for bobby pins, just right for pot,
that held your spare change and were toys for the cat?
Digital cameras have nothing like that!
They held rolls of stamps back when folks still wrote letters,
put sponges in others and they were stamp wetters.

The uses of film canisters knew no bonds.
We’d roll them down sidewalks and float them in ponds.
They’d serve as small coffins for dead flies we’d bury
and kept safe our lost teeth until the tooth fairy
whisked them away in trade for a coin.
(Different rates for each one she’d purloin.)

A dime for an eye tooth and quarters for molars.
They formed doll house tables and substitute rollers
for sisters to use in their ratted up hair.
Who could ever discover them there?
But now that film cameras are all passé,
children, I’m sure, have become more blasé.

They need Barbie Doll suites with push sofas and chairs,
hot curling wands to curl up their hairs,
Technical toys that move on their own,
tooth fairy pouches, intricately sewn.
But what do they use to roll down the bannister
now that technology’s banned the film cannister?

 

For NaPoWriMo 2020, Day 17 We are to write a poem about an obsolete bit of technology.

24 thoughts on “A Requiem for Film Cameras”

  2. slmret

    I love this, Judy — the film canisters were super useful! Along with pill bottles, they were just the right size for quarters — useful for parking, for laundry, and for all manner of other uses!!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      I had a houseguest the second year I was in my house. I didn’t know her before as she was a friend of a friend of almost 40 years duration who accompanied her to my house in Mexico. She had the first digital camera I’d ever seen. I believe it was a Canon and it was pink! I was amazed at the clarity of the photos and kept raving about it. When she got back to the states, she bought another one and sent it to me! An incredibly generous gift that has kept on giving since I started my blog a few years later. I am now on my fourth digital camera! And again, it is a Canon.

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