Proof Positive

I take pictures. I document history in the making. My cat rolls over and yawns. I take a picture. My baby sneezes. i take a picture. Someone coughs. Someone else sneezes. Picture, right? How much is too much? Can anything stand out in the vast sea of digital files that people are snapping every second of every single day? While this current trend flourishes and excites nearly everyone, I prefer to take a stroll back in time to when just a single random, unexpected shot was able to freeze time and speak a thousand words without even trying, even 44 years later.

Take this little beauty for instance. A single photo with no negative to back it up. I discovered this in a dusty photo album, long forgotten in my father's basement before he moved into a retirement community. You see, back in the day, my father was a "Sunday" dad. There were no weekend sleepovers, no bedroom in his basement apartment designated for me or my siblings, just a regular, ordinary, usual and predictable Sunday visit. I have little proof of my Sundays as a child because cameras weren't attached to our hips back then. But they WERE attached to the hips of Chicago street photographers who randomly chose passers-by for a black & white treasure!

One day we were chosen for this special honor as my sister, father and I exited a movie theater. I remember walking along the crowded street when a man jumped in front of us and without asking our permission or even for us to say "cheese" a bright bulb was extinguished before my eyes, blinding me for a time. I recall a fast and frenzied exchange of information between Daddy and the man but no explanation as to what it all meant. I remember the taste of my metal zipper in my mouth and being hurried along after this picture was taken. I thought I'd fall. I remember it was windy and how my legs felt like rubber and how my feet felt with each step. I remember my father's gloved hand not letting go. The wind was chilling me, mostly because I'd made my jacket wet from sucking on it and that tasty zipper.

I remember a lot from that day, mainly because we had been chosen. It would have just been another forgotten day had we not been the object of one working man's eye. One thing I did not remember, however, is something that the photo did. What movie had we seen? The clues were in the vintage emulsion. ....The marquee reads...Summer, Eleanor Parker, Jill St. John, Milton Berle....Bennett. The year was 1966 and the film was The Oscar. My proof positive of a simple but memorable Sunday.