By the Garden Gate

By the Garden Gate by Preston "Bud" Morris
Ronda and Mark

Reya, from After the Gold Puppy, was on a walk down Nostalgia Avenue a week or so ago. She invited us to post old photos of our own journey down that street. The blast of emotion that hit me upon opening the first of my many, many boxes of photos (no, they are not organized as I would like) smacked my gluteus maximus down hard into the seat of The Way Back Machine. It spun me into the past like a Whirling Dervish. For the next few posts I'll display photos and memories of my origins.

My father was a photographer. Out of the earliest files in my brain, flew images of him and his camera. Inseparable. The cameras changed over the years but he always seemed to stay the same. Calm. Quiet. Tall. Dark. Creative. Strong. Consistent. Reliable. A teacher. Yep, great qualities for a dad. Any dad. My dad.

In addition to his private photography business, he worked as a photo finisher in the days before 1-hour photo kiosks and digital photography. Sometimes he would take my brother and I to work with him. We always were excited and thought he was giving us a special day. But, in retrospect, my mom probably had to do something and he got stuck with us. Early in the morning, we would go to the retail store where he worked and pick up bags of film people had dropped off. Then we went around to other businesses around town that had film drop-offs. He always took us inside with him and proudly introduced us as he picked up unprocessed film and deposited the previous days finished photos.

With a box full of canvas, zippered bags and us in tow, he would take us to a little hamburger stand for lunch. Then we headed several miles out of town to the lab where he would develop all of those pictures. As we watched, he would open those zippered bags, dump out the little, metal, cylindrical tins with rubber caps holding spools of film. Into the dark room, with its special light that wouldn't ruin the film, we would go. He would open the tins, look at the negatives that looked like they were from a Reverse Bizarro World where light is dark and dark is light, and begin his magic alchemy.

I don't really remember what he did with the negatives, but some how he embedded the images from the negative film onto paper. Then with his magic trays of clear potion, he moved the pieces of paper from tray to tray with tongs. In the last tray, the paper started changing from plain white to, at first, faint, ghostly underwater images to, at last, exact replicas of living people and solid matter. Taking the photos out of the solution, he hung them by clips, on a long wire stretched across the room, to dry. The chemical smell of photo developer still makes me happy and is forever linked with my father.

Unbeknownst to us, he, apparently, had been submitting pictures to different contests and magazines over the years. While he was alive, the only affirmation of his work came from his family and local clients. He died in 1977 of a massive coronary. About 20 plus years after his death, my mother received a royalty check from the American Greeting Card Company for $125 for the top photo. It is called By the Garden Gate and is of me and my brother, Mark, at my Aunt Dot's house in Stockton, California.

We tried to find out what they were going to use his picture for, but never received a reply to our query. But, within a year after the check was received, all those mugs, cards and items featuring a little girl and a little boy, dressed in cute clothes, started appearing for sale. We'll never know for sure but, we think it was dad's photograph they used for their promotion.

I got a visit from dad on All Hallows. It was a very soft and gentle meeting. He just sat on the edge of my bed and looked at me for a while. Then he held out his hand and my mother joined him. They haven't been together for over 30 years. No words were spoken but, I could feel their love, strong and truer than ever. Just because people are gone doesn't mean they're not with us. Immortality is often far different than we think.

Preston "Bud" Morris, high school graduation picture, age 18