"I can't be a pessimist, because I'm alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter." -- James Baldwin

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Look What I Found!

     Anyone who read my previous posts about how I lost my camera while vacationing on Cape Cod should be as surprised as I was when they see this.




     Yes, it's my camera! I know it's mine because it has the white sticker I put on it when I was in Savannah, Ga.

     As I related in Has This Ever Happened to You? and Lost, Not Stolen, I lost my camera the second-to-last day of our September vacation, and spent most of a day scouring through the rental house and through our car, even calling up the theater where we'd been and the local Chamber of Commerce, in case it got turned in to the lost and found. Nothing.

     "I'm sure it just dropped down between the seats," B had told me.

     "Yeah," I'd replied. "That makes sense. But then where is it ... we've looked everywhere!"

     So yesterday I drove B's son to the airport -- he and his girlfriend had been visiting for a long weekend. On the way home I stopped to fill up the gas tank and get the car washed -- it still had sand in it from our trip.

     I pulled up to the entrance of the car wash and asked for the full treatment, including an interior vacuum. Then I got out of the car and let them do their thing. I walked inside, stopped at the restroom, bought a Coke, paid for the wash, and went outside. The guys were just bringing the car around to be hand dried. They had the doors and the back open, giving the interior windows a wash. As they finished up I stuffed a dollar in the tip can, walked over to the car ... and saw my camera sitting there in the back all by itself!

     Obviously, one of the guys vacuuming the car found it. Wedged under a seat? Stuck in a crack? There are a dozen guys at this car wash, and the vacuuming guy was way off in front. Another car came up in back of me, and I had to get going, so I didn't have time to ask. I'll never know.

    What I do know is that a lot of my friends worry that they're becoming more forgetful with age; and beneath the jokes are real anxieties about Alzheimers or other kinds of dementia. Not to make light of it, but I have a theory about why older people forget things.

     When we were kids, and we wanted to go out of the house, we ... went out of the house. Sometimes without even bothering to put on shoes. When we got older, okay, we had to carry keys and a wallet. That's it.

     But now? We have keys and a wallet; plus a phone and a camera. Plus glasses -- reading glasses, distance glasses, maybe sunglasses too. We likely carry an iPad or a kindle, and an extra sweater in case it gets cold. We go out of the house like we're pack mules setting out across the desert.

     We have so much to keep track of, it's no wonder we forget things!

     Meanwhile, now that I've retrieved my camera, here, from a month ago, is the view from our house in Cape Cod.



     And here's what it looked like in the evening:


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful photos. I'm happy for you finding the camera. Like the woman in the Bible story, you can rejoice.
Dianne

PS Today, men need purses. We women have been packing stuff forever. Get a backpack, just don't forget your sunscreen, kleenex and other toiletries. Based on your post a day or two ago, you also need water to hydrate.

Anonymous said...

good to hear you got the camera back. (not only the camera but all unforgetable pictures.)

Douglas said...

As usual, B was right. I am sure you have bowed down and kissed her feet by now so we'll say no more. Great sunset, by the way.

Linda Myers said...

Told you it would turn up!

stephen Hayes said...

It's been said already but I'm really glad you found your camera. I had no idea if it would turn up but good things do happen.

DJan said...

I don't remember what I said in my comment, but I think I was feeling it was lost, not stolen. And now here it is! Congratulations, and thanks for sharing the pictures, which are amazing, BTW. :-)

Dick Klade said...

Your theory is plausible. Sometimes, I load up with so much stuff before a brief trip there's a need to pause and remember where we're going.

Olga said...

I am glad that you got the camera back--two great pictures of a great spot.

Retired Syd said...

Oh Yay--I love stories with a happy ending!

Anonymous said...

Your camera recovery was actually accomplished in a short time, Tom. Some things stay lost for years (you knew that!) As a sophomore in college, I lost a Parker pen that had been a high school graduation gift. As a senior, I found it - just as I suspected - in the ham shack. While we were painting the walls, the amateur radio club station license had been taken down. Somehow, I managed to have my pen slip in between the paper license and another certificate that was in the pliable plastic bag in which they hung on the wall!

I'm still waiting for my Sigma Pi Sigma pin to show up - 20 years or so later.
Cop Car

Anonymous said...

P.S. "...20 years...." being measured from the time I last saw the pin - not from my college days. College days were in the 1950s!
CC

Anonymous said...

". . . And there was much rejoicing. . ."