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Avatar - HaarFager - 05-03-2025

I didn't know exactly where to post this, but thought this would be the most appropriate place.

I got to thinking that some may wonder what my avatar is about. That's not actually me with the Polaroid camera around my neck or the person in the chicken suit. The image is from a roll of film that was inside an old camera I bought. Whoever had owned the camera took vacation pictures when they went to a theme park in Pennsylvania and then forgot to take the roll out once it was finished and get it developed. Well, I bought the camera from a local antique store and found the film inside and then developed it myself. It was quite degraded, but I was able to get a few frames to turn out somewhat useable.

In one frame, the name of the theme park was clearly visible, "Dutch Wonderland." It was, and still is, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I believe the pictures were taken around the late-1960's or maybe a couple years into the 1970s, judging from the Polaroid instant camera around the guy's neck and the style of clothing people were wearing. I can't tell exactly what model of camera the Polaroid is because it's closed up, wtith the cover protecting it. But I have a couple just like it and they were made in the 1960s. The film itself is Kodak Verichrome Pan, and I'm pretty sure it's 620 size.

I think that's about all there is to tell about the image. Here's a link to the complete image, if you're interested. Notice the fogging along the left and right edges:

Dutch Wonderland - Found Film par HaarFager, on ipernity

RE: Avatar - FCD - 05-03-2025

I love stories like this where someone finds an old roll of film and has it developed.

I inherited an old Minox camera from the 50's or 60's. It had a roll of film in it. It took me quite a while to find someone who could develop that film because of its size, but B&H was able to do it. There wasn't anything particularly interesting on it, but it was still a fun experience.

My one story about a strange picture has to do with a book I bought once overseas in SE Asia. The book, The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford, had been outlawed in the US at the time (this was later overturned). It was the most detailed expose on the NSA ever written. At the time, the NSA still stood for "No Such Agency", and this book exposed it and the $1,500 toilet seat with it. The book was used when I bought it. It clearly had been thoroughly read with numerous passages underlined by different people. Curious.

Inside the book was a postcard apparently used as a bookmark. At first glance it looked like a normal postcard. The back had the usual divider and a place for a stamp. I thought nothing of it (at first); I just used it as a bookmark too. As I waded deeper into the book (it's a serious read, like 1,200 pages worth, and it's not light reading either) I started to look more carefully at the postcard bookmark. As noted, it looked like an ordinary postcard...almost too 'ordinary'.

The postcard was a picture of a street corner at night. In the picture there was the corner of a brick building, with an apartment window. Outside there was a sidewalk illuminated by a street lamp and a postal box nearby. That was it. There was no street sign, and no other notable features. It wasn't even a particularly great picture. It wasn't a famous street corner, just an ordinary street corner from Anywhere-ville, USA. If I had to categorize the nature of the picture, it would fall into the class of..."Does this camera still work?"...kind of photo. In other words, it was a postcard about nothing, nothing at all. Okay, that's weird!

The more I looked at the postcard the weirder this got. Why would anyone send a postcard about literally nothing to someone??? I mean, a postcard is usually something like Disneyland, or some other attraction, not just some bad photo of a random street corner. "Hello there! Look where I went today. Amazing, huh?" No, the postcard must have had some other significance, but what was it?

Later that night I was sound asleep when I heard this giant crash on my door. Sounded like someone had hit my door with a sledge hammer...HARD! I jumped up and headed for the door grabbing the only weapon I had handy which was a ice axe for mountain climbing. I ran to the door asking who was there, but no one answered. I yanked the door open, and the door into the stairwell across the hall was closing like someone had just gone through it. I opened the stairwell door and heard a couple footsteps, then nothing. I was on the 7th floor, so I figured my best chance was to go back to my apartment and look off my balcony to see if someone walked, ran or drove away across the parking lot. I didn't see anything.

I went back over to my front door and looked at it. Someone had hit the door with something, and they'd hit it so hard that the door frame on the latch side was split from top to bottom. This would need to be repaired. It could have been a random break-in attempt, or it was something else, but the coincidence to the book, the postcard and the timing of it all made me very suspicious.

Nothing more ever came of it, but that was a truly bizarre experience. And, I'll never forget that postcard about nothing.

RE: Avatar - HaarFager - 05-04-2025

(05-03-2025, 05:05 PM)FCD Wrote: Nothing more ever came of it, but that was a truly bizarre experience. And, I'll never forget that postcard about nothing.

Now, that's a cool story. I like interesting things like that as well. That's happened to me a couple times before - buying a used book and finding somebody's interesting bookmark they left inside it. I once bought a used book and inside it was an unused ticket for the 2004 Division Series Game 1 for the Atlanta Braves. Another time I found this picture inside a used book. It was sent home by a student named Lam Kun Wah, about his school in Kowloon, Hong Kong:

Kowloon, Hong Kong par HaarFager, on ipernity

But I think the most unusual thing I found that was being used as a bookmark in an old book was a photo of an outrigger canoe with a crew of native paddlers; probably from somebody's Hawaiian vacation.