It's a difficult time in your life when you are tired, old and ready to retire but can't due to your financial situation. Some professions and many employers do not provide a pension. Jobs that are open to the older person are boring, pay little, and are sometimes dangerous. Bill, a friend of mine, worked as a photographer until he was sixtyfive, then got a part time job as a night time security guard. He would come to chorus rehearsal in his toolarge uniform looking completely worn out. He came to me once and told me that he still had his original cameras from the forties. He said he would like me to look at them to see if they were worth anything, admitting that as far as he knew, none of them worked. I told him that I would be glad to look at them and perhaps even fix them. The following week he presented me with a large cardboard box containing a half dozen old cameras. Among them was a four by five Speed Graphic, a five by seven view camera, two early thirtyfive millimeter cameras and a Zeiss Ikon folding camera. Since I loved all cameras, I was thrilled to have a chance at cleaning up his collection. It took three months of tearing apart, polishing, reassembling and testing these gems of early photography to look like new. Most of the repair involved fine adjustments of the mechanisms and occasionally a part had to be milled out of raw stock. Cushioning each specimen in foam, I filled a large suitcase with the restored cameras, anticipating Bill's expression when he saw the result of my labors. At our next meeting, I arrived early to present to him the cameras. He was flabbergasted, holding each camera like a rare gem, turning them this way and that, marveling at the shine of newness not seen for fifty years. Later, in the parking lot, he thanked me again for fixing his cameras and insisted that I keep the cameras for myself, after all the work I did on them. He added that they were worth nothing in their abused condition so he wouldn't be losing anything. Not wanting to upset him by arguing, I thanked him and went home. I racked my brain for a way to compensate Bill for his generosity and came up with a plan. I would take his cameras to a large camera exposition and show where there would be photography dealers and collectors. I was sure that they would be interested in these original cameras. I added a few cameras that I had been given through the years. One, a wrist camera that took ten circular pictures and looked like a diver's watch was a collector's item. Others included an old twin lens camera and several folding cameras. Except for the wrist camera, my dealings at the Photographic Exhibit were one hundred per cent successful. I collected four hundred and forty dollars from ten different dealers. At the next chorus meeting, I handed Bill an envelope with two hundred twenty dollars, half the take from the cameras. Since this occurred in the sixties, this money represented a month's rent for Bill. He is now living by himself in a little room, surrounded by the memorabilia of six decades as a photographer. |
