Sunday, May 26, 2024
POETRY SPOT
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Sometimes a a smile, a touch, a personal connection, a shared story can make all the difference to others . . .
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Have You Earned Your Tomorrow
- Edgar A. Guest
Is anybody happier because you passed his way?
Does anyone remember that you spoke to him today?
This day is almost over, and its toiling time is through;
Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?
Did you give a cheerful greeting to the friend who came along?
Or a churlish sort of "Howdy" and then vanish in the throng?
Were you selfish pure and simple as you rushed along the way,
Or is someone mighty grateful for a deed you did today?
Can you say tonight, in parting with the day that's slipping fast,
That you helped a single brother of the many that you passed?
Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said;
Does a man whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead?
Did you waste the day, or lose it, was it well or sorely spent?
Did you leave a trail of kindness or a scar of discontent?
As you close your eyes in slumber do you think that God would say,
You have earned one more tomorrow by the work you did today?
Saturday, May 25, 2024
SONG SPOT
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AT SEVENTEEN
JANIS IAN
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At Seventeen is a 1975 song about teenage angst written and sung by Janis Ian.
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Video link:
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Some Youtube comments:
I first heard this at 17. Now I'm 70 yrs. old and this still moves me
I grew up and felt like this when I grew up . Hard to be not wanted on teams or bullied growing up. Hated School for that reason. Janis has a beautiful voice.
What a beautiful song that really encourages empathy for those who didn't have the looks and the life they wanted as a teenager.
What an amazing songstress
Janis's voice is so beautiful; this song is in the Hall of Fame and she won a grammy for it - rightfully so.
I think Janis Ian is beautiful. This song is so very sad, it hurts to think that there are some who feel this way.
The irony of course, is that she is incredibly beautiful in a non-conventional way. Inside and out. xo
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Lyrics:
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired
The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "Come dance with me"
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems
At seventeen
A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said, "Pity, please, the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve"
And the rich-relationed hometown queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company
And haven for the elderly
See upcoming pop shows
Get tickets for your favorite artists
Remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality
And dubious integrity
Their small town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received
At seventeen
To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
When dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me
We all play the game and when we dare
To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
They call and say, "Come dance with me"
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me
At seventeen
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Awards:
- Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance 1976
- Grammy nominations for Record and Song of the Year.
- The single reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,
- Sold over a million copies as at August 2004.
- Internationally, "At Seventeen" charted in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
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About Janis Ian:
Janis grew up in an all-black neighborhood in East Orange, New Jersey.
With the exception of a weekly Folk music program, all she listened to for years was an R&B station out of Newark. It wasn't until she was 13 or 14 that she started listening to The Beach Boys and The Beatles.
Her birth name was Janis Eddy Fink. She changed it when she was 13 and started performing. "Ian" is her brother's middle name.
She was a big part of the New York City folk scene at a very young age.
Her first single, "Society's Child," was a hit when she was 15.
She took piano lessons when she was 2, but gave it up. By the time she was 10, she was teaching herself how to play guitar.
In 1971, she became the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live. She had strep throat and a fever that night.
She turned down a slot at the original Woodstock.
A prolific songwriter, Roberta Flack had a hit with her song "Jesse" in 1973. Janis has also written commercial jingles, including songs for McDonalds, AT&T, Budweiser, and Coke.
Janis has written many magazine articles, including a regular column for Performing Songwriter magazine. She got a lot of attention for taking the stand that Internet file sharing is good for most musicians. She has sold a lot more records and merchandise since Napster and other services have made her songs available for download.
She started the Pearl Foundation (named after her mother) to offer scholarships for college.
In 2003, she married her girlfriend: Nashville defense lawyer Patricia Snyder. The ceremony took place in Toronto, where gay marriages are legal.
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About the song:
From Songfacts at:
The interview referred to is at:
In our interview with Janis Ian, she explained that this song is about feeling alienated while growing up. It was more about Janis' life between the ages of 12-14, but "17" fit better into the lyrics.
Janis was 15 when she had her first hit song, "Society's Child," and had been on the road for two years by the time she was 17. Although her childhood was not typical, she knew what it felt like to feel out of place at a young age.
Speaking about crafting this story, Janis explained in our interview: "I never went to a prom, but I did go to my 6th grade dance. That's the trick, it's just like acting. How many people are playing Hamlet whose father is a king? You take your own experience, find something similar in it and draw on that. Even though I didn't go to the prom, I knew what it was like not to get asked to the dance."
This song came at an opportune time for Ian. She told us: "I had to move back into my mom's house because I was broke and I couldn't make any money on the road. I was sitting at the kitchen table with a guitar one day, and I was reading a New York Times article about a debutante, and the opening line was 'I learned the truth at 18.' I was playing that little samba figure, and that line struck me for some reason. The whole article was about how she learned being a debutante didn't mean that much. I changed it to 17 because 18 didn't scan."
Janis wrote the first verse quickly, finding it flowed in a logical pattern: "I leaned the truth at 17," what did you learn... "that love what meant for beauty queens," and who else... "and high school girls with clear skinned smiles," what do we not like about that... "who married young and then retired." The chorus was a lot harder to write. Janis explains that at some point you don't have a lot of control over a song. You can control the craft, but not the inspiration.
Janis told us: "I wrote the first verse and chorus and it was so brutally honest. It's hard to imagine now but people weren't writing that type of song then. I was coming out of listening to people like Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, who did write those kind of songs, but pop music and folk music really didn't. I remember thinking I couldn't blow this because it really was going to be a good song. I put it away for three weeks and it took about three months to write the whole thing. I couldn't figure out the ending, I couldn't figure out what to do with her, then I thought I would recap it, bring myself into it and bring it into the past."
When she went to record this, Janis knew it was going to be a hit and wanted to make sure it came out right. She kicked the lead guitarist out of the session because he wasn't trying very hard to capture the feel of the song, replacing him with a young kid who was "so scared you could smell his sweat across the room." This made the other musicians in the room pay attention, and helped capture the feeling of confusion and adolescence Janis was going for.
Janis Ian: "To me it's never been a depressing song. It says 'ugly duckling girls like me,' and to me the ugly duckling always turns into a swan. It offers hope that there is a world out there of people who understand."
Getting this on the radio was no easy task. Not only was it packed with lyrics, but at 3:56, it was about a minute longer than most songs radio stations were playing. Janis and her management decided to market it to women, and because radio stations were dominated by men, they had to get creative. They sent copies of the song to the program director's wives, then put Janis on every daytime TV show they could. It was six months of exhausting, grassroots promotion, which paid off when they got a spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This pushed the song over the top and it became a hit.
This was nominated for five Grammy Awards, the most any female artist had ever been nominated for at the time. It won for Best Female Pop Vocal.
Ian performed this song on the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975.
For the first six months that Janis Ian performed the song she closed her eyes as she sang it. She feared the audience would laugh at her because of the personal nature of the lyrics.
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Gallery:
Friday, May 24, 2024
QUOTE FOR THE DAY
During the controversial Bodyline cricket series between England and Australia in 1932-1933, the English cricket team employed 'bodyline bowling'. This consiisted of the hard cricket ball being bowled close to gthe batsan so that the batsmen was forced into defence rather than scoring runs.
During the series the English captain Douglas Jardine visited the Australian dressing room and complained to the Australian captain, Bill Woodfull, that he had heard an Australian player call him “a bastard”. He demanded an apology.
Woodfull turned to the players in the dressing room and, pointing to Jardine, said:
“Which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?”
Jardine said no more, turned and walked away.
ORIGINS WORDS AND PHRASES
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CRICKET
I confess that I am not a fan or follower of cricket and find watching it as dull as dishwater.
However, here are comments on some cricketing words and phrases, plus a few anecdotes.
By the way:
The expression ‘dull as dishwater’ originated in the 1700s and originally appeared as ‘dull as ditchwater.’ Roadsides commonly had ditches alongside which often contained dirt, debris and muddy water. Either through careless pronunciation or similar analogy, the phrase dull as dishwater seems to have overtaken the original expression in popularity. An early example can be found in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1837): ‘He’d be sharper than a serpent’s tooth, if he wasn’t as dull as ditchwater.’
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Cricket:
Some explanations as to origin:
- It derived from the Old French “criquet”, meaning “goal, post, or stick”.
- Alternatively from the Middle Dutch “kricke”, meaning “stick” or “staff”. The latter Middle Dutch derivation from “kricke” is generally considered more likely due to the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and Flanders, which belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy.
- A further alternative explanation: it comes from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, “met de krik ket sen”, which means “with the stick, chase”. Early cricket was played with a stick that resembled more a hockey stick than the modern day cricket bat. Bowlers, at the time, typically kept the ball on the ground or at least skimmed the ground, instead of pitching the ball as they do today. As a response to the change towards pitching and bouncing the ball, in the late 18th century, the straight bat was introduced and is still used to this day.
The game of cricket itself is thought to have been played as early as the 13th century, with the first direct reference to it appearing in 1598 in a court case which referenced a game called “krekett” (sometimes spelled “creckett”) being played at the Royal Grammar School in England in 1550.
Cricket gradually grew in popularity until, in the 18th century, it was named the official sport of England, being the favored leisure activity among the privileged class.
Evolution of the cricket bat. The original "hockey stick" (left) evolved into the straight bat from c. 1760 when pitched delivery bowling began.
Painting by Francis Cotes, The Young Cricketer, 1768
The first recorded photo of a cricket match taken on 25 July 1857 by Roger Fenton
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Brit cricket commentator Brian Johnston is said to have commented upon Michael Holding of the West Indies bowling to Peter Willey of England in a Test match at The Oval in 1976: “The bowler's Holding; the batsman's Willey."
Another Johnston item: During a Test match at the Oval in August 1991, Jonathan Agnew suggested that when Ian Botham was out hit wicket, trying to hurdle the stumps, it was because he had failed to "get his leg over" (a British slang term meaning to have sex; Botham's sexual exploits had attracted national attention). Johnston carried on commentating and giggling for 30 seconds before dissolving into helpless laughter.
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The Ashes:
The Ashes is a men's Test cricket series played biennially between England and Australia.
The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and that "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". The mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in Australia, before which the English captain Ivo Bligh had vowed to "regain those ashes". The English media therefore dubbed the tour the quest to regain the Ashes.
After England won two of the three Tests on that tour, a small urn was presented to Bligh in Melbourne. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of a wooden bail, and were humorously described as "the ashes of Australian cricket".
The Ashes urn
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Bail, Stumps and Wicket:
In the sport of cricket, a bail is one of the two smaller sticks placed on top of the three stumps to form a wicket.
The bails are used to determine when the wicket is broken or put down, which in turn is one of the critical factors in determining whether a batsman is out bowled, stumped, run out or hit wicket.
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The first testicular guard was used in cricket in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974.
It took 100 years for men to realise that the brain is also important.
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Howzat:
In cricket, an appeal (locally known as a "Howzat", from “How’s that?’) is the act of a player (or players) on the fielding team asking an umpire for a decision regarding whether a batter is out or not.
According to Law 31 of the Laws of Cricket, an umpire may not rule a batter out unless the fielding side appeals for a decision. However, in practice most umpires will give a batter out to an obvious bowled or caught.
On many occasions when a batter has otherwise technically been out, the fielding team has not realised, so neglected to appeal, and so the umpire has not declared them out.
An appeal may be made at any point before the bowler starts their run-up for the next ball.
By the way:
Howzat" is also a song by Australian band Sherbet, released in May 1976. The song reached number 1 in Australia.
Link:
Some of the lyrics:
You told me I was the one
The only one who got your head undone
And for a while I believed the line that you spun
But I've been lookin' at you
Lookin' closely at the things you do
I didn't see you the way you wanted me to
How, How, Howzat?
You messed about I caught you out
Howzat?
Now that I've found where you're at
It's good-bye
Well Howzat?
It's good-bye
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Googly:
A deceptive spinning delivery by a leg spin bowler, also known (particularly in Australia) as the wrong 'un. For a right-hander bowler and a right-handed batsman, a googly will turn from the off side to the leg side.
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Hat Trick:
A bowler taking a wicket off each of three consecutive deliveries that he bowls (whether in the same over or split up in two consecutive overs, or two overs in two different spells).
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Sledging:
Verbal abuse in simple terms, or a psychological tactic in more complex terms. Used by cricketers both on and off the field to gain advantage of the opposition by frustrating them and breaking the concentration of the opposition. Considered in some cricketing countries to be against the spirit of the game, although occasional sledging remains common.
A well-known sledge:
Portly Eddo Brandes was a Zimbabwean medium-pacer by day and chicken farmer by night. During a one-day match between Australia and Zimbabwe in 1996, Australian bowler Glenn McGrath was becoming increasingly frustrated with Brandes’ play.
After several play-and-misses, McGrath looked Eddo up and said: “Why are you so fat?”
Brandes immediately retorted: “Because every time I make love to your wife she gives me a biscuit.”
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To conclude, an item which has previously been in Bytes -
The victory song of the Australian Cricket Team, sung by the players after each victory:
"Under the Southern Cross I stand
A sprig of wattle in my hand
A native of my native land
Australia, you fucking beauty"
Maybe it should be the national anthem.
FUNNY FRIDAY
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Hello again Byters.
Friday already? Time flies. Groucho Marx once said, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Last week’s theme for Funny Friday was money, today there are some jokes about the lack thereof thrown in.
Caution:
Some risque language ahead.
Enjoy.
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SOME HUMOUR:
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When I was young, I was poor.
After many years of hard work, I am no longer young.
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Poor Prince Philip (10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021), missed out by two months on getting a letter from his wife.
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Today I donated my watch, phone, and $500 to a poor guy.
You can’t imagine the happiness I felt as I saw him put his pistol back in his pocket.
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When I was young we were really poor.
On my 6th birthday, my mother put 3 candles on a cake and stuck it in front of a mirror.
Reader comment:
You lucky rich brat, you had a mirror and whopping 3 candles. We were so poor that I had to light and blow the same candle six times.
Sounds a bit like the Monty Python skit about 4 Yorkshiremen:
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Little Teddy’s doing very poorly in math, so his parents enrol him in Catholic school.
The first day home from St. Michael’s, he walks straight to his room to do his math homework. After dinner Teddy marches back upstairs and starts calculating again.
His mother visits his room and says, “You’re working awfully hard!”
“Well,” Teddy replies, “today when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren’t fucking around.”
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You can make a capitalist poor and they’ll still believe in capitalism
But if you make a socialist rich, you have a new capitalist.
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A woman in a supermarket is following a grandfather and his badly behaved three year old grandson.
It’s obvious to her that he has his hands full with the child screaming for sweets, biscuits … you name it.
Meanwhile, Grandpa is working his way around, saying in a controlled voice, “Easy, William, we won’t be long … easy, boy.”
Another outburst and she hears the grandpa calmly say, “It’s okay, William, just a couple more minutes and we’ll be out of here. Hang in there, boy.”
At the checkout, the little terror is throwing items out of the cart and Grandpa says again in a controlled voice, “William, William, relax buddy, don’t get upset. We’ll be home in five minutes, stay cool, William.”
Very impressed, the woman goes outside where the grandfather is loading his groceries and the boy into the car.
She says to the elderly man, “It’s none of my business, but you were amazing in there. I don’t know how you did it. That whole time you kept your composure, and no matter how loud and disruptive he got, you just calmly kept saying things would be okay. William is very lucky to have you as his grandpa.”
“Thanks,” said the grandpa, “but I’m William. The little shit’s name is Kevin!”
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I think my ex-girlfriend fell into poverty since we broke up.
Every time I call her, she says, “Please leave me a loan.”
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An American walks into a Swiss bank with two large bags. He walks up to a teller and says quietly "I have 2 million dollars in cash that I need to deposit into a Swiss bank account now"
The teller replies "Sir, there's no need to whisper, poverty is nothing to be ashamed of in Switzerland."
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Two clowns are eating a cannibal.
Suddenly, one turns to the other and says, "I think I fucked up the joke."
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One afternoon, a man was riding in the back of his limousine when he noticed two men eating grass by the road side. He ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate.
“Why are you eating grass?” he asked one man. “We don’t have any money for food,” the poor man replied.
“Oh, come along with me then.” the man from the limousine said excitedly.
“But sir, I have a wife with two children!” “Bring them along! And you, come with us too!” he said to the other man. “But sir, I have a wife with six children!” the second man answered. “Bring them as well!”
So, they all climbed into the car, which was no easy task, even for a vehicle as large as the limousine.
One of the poor fellows expressed his gratitude, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.”
The rich man replied, “No, thank you… the grass at my place is about three feet tall and I could use the help!”
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LIMERICK OF THE WEEK:
All winter a eunuch from Munich
Went out wearing only his tunic.
Folk said, ‘You’ve a cough:
You’ll freeze your balls off !’
Said he, ‘I’m already a eunuch.’
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GALLERY:
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CORN CORNER:
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My poor knowledge of Greek mythology has always been my Achilles elbow
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My dream is to be poor for one day…
Because every day is too fucking much
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Money can't buy happiness...
...but poverty can't buy anything!
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What do you call a bee after it’s had a few drinks?
Buzzed
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Why did my wife cross the road?
To get back to the first shoe shop we went in three fucking hours ago !
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Wednesday, May 22, 2024
MORE NOSTALGIA
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Sent to me by Tony Z with the heading “I remember most of these. Do you?”
Thanks Tony.
Pics from Tony, comments by me . . .
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Kaleidoscopes are still magic.
Do they still use these in shoe stores? Are there still shoe stores, apart from sports shops?
I had one of these to make your own stamps but not a John Bull one, that is British.
Wagon Wheels are still around (ha ha) but a lot smaller than our day – not only put the price up, make the product smaller.
For those not aware, this is what department stores (pre-supermarkets) looked like in our day: centre islands, most usually each having an attendant and cash register.
Ahh, glorious fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, heavily salted. Bliss.
School desk and school bag, I recall them.
What’s the radio from my childhood doing there and how did they get a photo of it?
We used the cartons when we found them as slide on arm bands.
The can opener from Hell
Our first toilet when we were kids was an outside pan toilet, not brick – you had to walk across wet grass at night (stepping on snails and slugs) to get to it and leave the door open to use the light from the moon. The smell was atrocious.
I had one of these. 4 flashes per Flash Cube.
It’s called a mangle. My mother’s washing machine had one on top to dry the washing before you put it on the clothesline out the back and propped up the line with a long branch, forked at the top,
My flared jeans had butterflies sewn onto the flares
Cobbler’s last, to fix and re-sole shoes at home
My mother sent my brothers and I to school with jam sandwiches for lunch, by that time the bread was soggy and unpalatable
The olld and reliable Brownie Box. I used one of these for many years. When the roll of film was finished you wound it back into its cassette, took it to the chemist who sent it away for developing. A week later you went in and obtained your photos.
Caps for shoe heel soles to stop wear
I have one of these on the wall in our laundry
So can I
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