Long May You Run

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nce upon a time, in a far away place, I took this picture. I forgot about it. Amazon Pictures found it. It was something I saw after lunch with a friend, as I was walking to my car. I stopped for a few minutes and photographed the hell out of it.

I used my favorite camera of the time, even though it wasn’t anything big time. I used Nikon for most work, but I carried a Canon Powershot G-9 everywhere. It was a little thick to fit in my pockets so I wore it like a big camera on a strap and slung it over my shoulder.

I made so many pictures with it that I it wore out. Canon couldn’t repair it, but they were amazed at the number of times I pushed the button.

340,781

That’s a lot.

I sorta bought a used one from a kid on Craigslist. We met at some coffeeshop in Albuquerque. He wanted $250.00. I offered him $100. He asked why he should take such a low price. I replied that it was obviously stolen and there are two cops sitting right over there. He asked how I knew. He left the SD card in the camera. There were a bunch of family pictures stored on it. He claimed it was his family. I showed them to him. He was a blonde white boy. I smiled at him and said, “so you’re Black, who’d have thunk it?

He walked away before I could do anything.

So, being the law abiding soul that I am, I it mentioned to the cops. They shrugged their shoulders. Unless I could prove it was stolen they couldn’t do much about it.

That’s how I got my first free camera.