W.O.F. 57 Darkroom Door

door open

Every spring our city has a "toss out whatever you want and we will collect it" trash week. It took place this past week, and we made a small clearance.

There was once a time when we wound up with more stuff than we were able to toss. This was because our son was cruising the streets, scouting for treasures. One year he came back with a wheelchair and tried to impress us with his "wheelies". (I ended up tossing it in the back of a semi trailer heading for New Orleans and Katrina victims), That same night, thanks to a friend with a pickup truck, he brought home this wonderful item. Every home needs one.

Once upon a time, before there were digital cameras, people had to go into dark rooms (called "darkrooms") to develop the film in their cameras and print pictures from the film. It was a fairly arduous process compared with the lightning-fast digital downloads of today. Anyhow, William found this round darkroom door on the side of the road somewhere and brought it home, much as the cat of my youth used to deposit dead moles on our back porch. A trophy for sure.

The thing looks like an alien phone booth. Its round outer wall has an opening in the front and back. Then there is another circular, spinning "wall" inside that has just one opening. You line it up with the front outer opening, step inside, turn the inner wall 180 degrees, then step out the other side. With this thing lodged in a doorway, you can enter a room without letting any light in. Pretty cool eh?

a view (of my foot) from inside

Yeah, the boy used to wow the little kiddies in the neighborhood doing a "disappearing" act. Then one summer, we hauled the thing down to the church as a kid magnet during vacation Bible school. I think there was some space travel theme connected to the curriculum that summer, so this was a way-back machine or something.

door closed (and open on the other side)

And now, several years later, the thing sits out in a corner of the back yard, still a conversation piece.

I have this faint recollection that I may have reported on this one before. If so, I apologize, but I think it's weird enough for a rerun.

- - - - -

Ah, finally the good weather is here! After dinner we took a leisurely bike ride, then I moved a couple chairs out on the patio and we took in the sights and sounds. It was sort of like living in the flight path of a major airport. As dusk approached, the buzzards were finding their way back, in ones and twos and threes, to the neighbor's thick pine trees. They have again made those trees their home base for now, although they don't hang out in the trees up and down the road like they did last year, so I have not had the photo ops that I had last year. But it was sort of fun watching them going into their final approach tonight.

Now get out there and enjoy the weather this weekend (if the weather where you find yourself is, indeed, enjoyable...)