Back Then

In today's world, everything, everywhere, all the time, is recorded. Social media leads to instant global access, and just about every tool or appliance takes a picture or records a video. There are hundreds and hundreds of TV channels to watch, (which now have to be paid for) and we have instant access to untold tens of thousands of songs.

In the "olden days" that was not the case. I had a TV that got 4 channels and three of them were somewhat clear, but it didn't cost me $180 a month to watch either. As a matter of fact, I could buy a really decent used car all day long for that kind of money. If you found a car with 100,000 miles on it, and it was still running, chances are the owner would give it to you for free to get it out of the yard. If I had an eight track or two, they had 8 songs on them and I could listen to them over and over until the tape deck got hungry and ate them.  Same with those new and exciting cassette tapes.

Also, I left home at a pretty young age and probably lived in no less than 20 different apartments  between the age of 16 and my mid 20's. A lot of things got left behind or lost moving around so much and some of those things were pictures.  In order to take a picture, you obviously had to have a camera, but it was more involved than just that. You also had to know how to use it because film came from the store, had to be loaded into the camera, pictures taken, unloaded and packaged up and then taken to a little kiosk type store in some grocery store parking lot for them to send off somewhere to develop. Then it was back to the kiosk to pick it up and open the envelope with a lot of anticipation. You were never really sure of what you would find, under or over exposed, out of focus, not centered or film that just did not work out. There was no preview and keep or discard decision to make - each single push of the shutter button meant quite a bit.

So, when I come across pictures from my younger, nomadic, hit or miss picture taking past, they seem to make more of an impact than the on demand, instant, expendable nature that most of today's pictures do.

Anyhow, I came across these and thought I'd throw them up here.





First Beach, Newport RI. Someone got their hands on a parachute, another guy had a boat and voila, parasailing! Late 70's





Sun and Sand bar, early 80's.





Camping in CT I believe.





  Me and my older brother Bobby. Early 60's at Grandma's house.








 Another one of me and my brother Bobby. This was at his apartment in Newport. He's 54 years old now so this was quite a while ago.



My Friend Jeff's wedding. Sorry Jeff, I don't remember the year, but it was a long time ago.

 



 Same thing. Jeff tying the knot with his future ex wife Ann. There are a couple people in the picture who have since gone on to a better place.