
THE THIEF
When I was young, my Mom took me and my sister on a vacation to Waskesiu Lake in Saskatchewan. I can't recall my specific age, but I must have been between 7-9. It may have been for the trip, or a birthday present that year, but I had been given my first camera, with two rolls of Kodak Film 24. I was so excited to use it. After an eight hour trip through the prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan, of which we exhausted every James Taylor and Phil Collins album, we finally arrived at Waskesiu Lake. I jumped out of the car, and after the three of us acquainted ourselves with the surroundings, I went out on a hunt to find the best shot; a picture I could show all my friends and family back at home. And then, I saw a squirrel... I snapped my first shot, and ran after him and took another, up a tree, another, under a car, another, on a branch, one more... I ran up and down the camp taking picture after picture of this wonderful little furry model until my Kodak 24 Roll was full. I wound the camera up, just like my mom showed me and popped the full roll in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fanny pack. I felt SO good, and couldn't wait to develop the pictures, I even pleaded my mom to get them developed there at the Waskesiu Drugstore, but she explained that developing takes time and if we dropped them off here they wouldn't be finished before our vacation was over.
So I waited. The anticipation nearly killed me. It was a glorious day when we picked up the pictures from the photo lab, I was so excited to see all the wonderfully captured moments. I opened up the pack and started barreling through my shots, first the ground, then a tree trunk... then some car's tire... a branch... some PINE CONES... I began to realize that what I thought were amazing close up shots of a wild furry squirrel model, were just proof of my slow reflexes and horrific composing ability. Then, finally, hidden in all the random shots of the lower three feet of a campground, I found what I had been hoping for, my captured moment of a very frightened, very tiny, very blurry, furry model. I was proud... or at least I told myself I was.
I took this photo today, for my 7 to 9 year old self, I hope he is proud of me.
I'm proud of him.
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