Remember the Polaroid One Step camera? Everyone in our family had one. You snapped a picture, the photo would spit out the front and slowly develop before your eyes. At family events, you needed a pen so when everyone took the same picture, they could write their name on the bottom so they knew what picture belonged to them.

At the time, so many people took pictures with that camera. Back in the day, you put them in a photo album where they stayed until the digital age. Then we all started scanning them. When we began to do this, many people realized that those pictures didn’t hold up too good. Take for example my photo today.

That picture is one of my favorites of my grandparents. As you can see, the photo has cracks all throughout it. I’m sure there are people who restore pictures, and at some point I may have to do that to this one and a number of others.

The story of this picture is a simple one. My grandpa’s feet always seemed to bother him. They hurt all the time. So for Christmas that year, we bought him a “Foot Fixer.” If memory serves me right, the year that it came out there was a barrage of commercials for it on TV. There was probably some joking that proceeded him actually getting one.

The thing I love about this picture is the natural smile on my grandpa’s face. He was genuinely happy to have gotten this! Any time someone bought him something, he’d say, “Why did you by me something?” or “No, no, I don’t need anything.” He may have even said it before he opened this, but he sure did love getting it.

A couple things stand out in this picture for me. First, is my grandma’s beehive hairstyle. She wore her hair like this for many, many years. Many of my core memories of her include that hair.

Next, is the orange couch. If you go back through some of my previous Friday Flashbacks, you will probably see the loud/ugly furniture that used to reside in this room. The couch was this awful gold swirly flowery design. I cannot remember why grandma got rid of that furniture because NO ONE every really sat on it. It looked like it was brand new. However, she did get rid of it and solid color prevailed.

There is a crocheted afghan on the back of the couch. I can probably bet that my mom was responsible for making it. She made countless afghans with the pile of yarn she had. I wish I had one of those now.

The thing behind my grandpa is not the grandfather clock I thought it was. I cannot recall if that was even the place that she put the clock. At first glance to me, that is what I thought it was. Upon closer examination, I can see that it is a shelving unit of some kind. It looks solid because you can see the front door behind it. I do not remember this thing or any of the things that are sitting on the shelves.

As I look at this picture, I see my grandparents happy and healthy. They look great here. I am sure that as a kid behind the camera, I am just enjoying having them around. I never really thought about the possibility of them getting sick or getting older. I miss them both a lot, but am happy to have some great photos to remember them.