Life Preservers

Wish I Had a Camera in My Head

May 6, 2010 at 11:43 am 4 comments

I wish I had a camera in my head.

No, I don’t mean a photographic memory. I mean a camera. In my head. Lens (with zoom) in the middle of my forehead and wires and stuff all connected so that I just had to hard-blink or push a button embedded in my thumb or carol-burnett my ear lobe to capture images.

I have stated this wish for years and I don’t think it’s completely insane to think that, someday, probably, the technology will exist. And somebody better be willing to push my wheel chair to the hospital if it happens in my lifetime.  

I have been fascinated with photography since my gramma and grampap gifted me my very first camera (black inset with faux wood paneling) at age 8. I’m on my sixth, somewhat sleeker camera now, and through the years have developed a bit of an eye (or enough dumb luck) to capture some good shots every now and then.

The problem is, I “see” pictures all over the place. And pretty often, I don’t have the camera handy or I don’t have hands free to click. Like tonight, for instance, as I was leaving the office.  

As I sat at the end of the office driveway, waiting to pull out, I noticed the  stopped car. A rare sight at 5:00. With cars spilling out of every driveway in the office park and everybody going 50 in the 35 zone. Yes, there was a lot of honking, but not, as you might guess, from the other cars lining up behind the stopped one.

Next to that car, above the high curb, on the lovely grass lawn, stood a mama goose, a papa goose, and four goslings. Below the curb, on the road, waddled gosling number five. The little guy’s family was honking like mad. He was walking fast but, you know, fast is relative when you’re about 4 inches high with really teenie feet at the bottom of some stubby new legs. There was no end to the curb in sight and his nubby wings weren’t ready to fly.

Kudos to the driver who managed to see a little goose. Thanks for stopping. And God bless you for your extreme patience.  We waited. We sat and watched.

Then mama goose gave a big wild honk and kind of flapped her wings. I don’t know if it was a maternal freak-out or a very timely lesson, but suddenly the little guy kind of lifted his nub-wings and hopped and somehow crested the curb to join his family. 

Traffic got moving.  And I imagine those other drivers were grinning from ear to ear. And perhaps swallowing a wee lump in the throat.

I wonder if any of them wished they had a camera in their head?

Would you get one? If the technology existed?

Entry filed under: Life Preservers. Tags: camera, goose, gosling, humor, photography, traffic.