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Canon Image Challenge | all galleries >> CIC 266: Books >> Eligible > 13 Crime and Punishment (Not by Fyodor Dostoevsky)
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14-Feb-2025 TRAVELLER

13 Crime and Punishment (Not by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

....a most fantastical story, out of our past

Among other more valuable items, this was stolen from me 40 odd years ago...an event almost beyond memory.

And yet, for my 80th birthday, this was suddenly returned to me as a gift left on my doorstep...and maybe a parting leave, the person is moving out of state. Needless to say, the intervening years have been difficult with little contact between ourselves.

There is something deep going on here, Crime and Punishment, but who's crime, who's punishment and where does guilt reside...me or there?

Traveller

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comment
Canon Image Challenge18-Feb-2025 13:43
Being 79 working on 80, I know my mind likes to think I am closer to 60. However my golf game recognizes the difference.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge18-Feb-2025 12:21
80 is the new 60.

Dave
Canon Image Challenge17-Feb-2025 06:49
80? Its a tough job but someone has to do it.....(lol) Thanks for kind words, we can always use them. Best Wishes, Traveller
Canon Image Challenge16-Feb-2025 15:27
I don't have anything to contribute to the story, except to say that I can't believe you are eighty. You make me feel like the brash youngster in our little group (at sixty-four)! I love the image, though. I think the lighting, composition, and color are perfect.
Alastair
Canon Image Challenge16-Feb-2025 01:39
Your analysis is correct Jim...I think it just fascinating how this ripples over time. There were drugs involved and I've always had trouble working with people on drugs...though God knows, I probably have my own, (food, now...lol).

When getting my Masters in Psy, I worked briefly in drug rehab...and people would come in bragging about how great this new #27 needle was...damn, I was certain I was again, like war, have people dying on me...which is part of the reason I abandoned this profession...I couldn't seem to help.

Still, I look back and wish I had been a better friend...or mentor, or something. A bad failure on my part...made more acute because the following generation is doing quite well....well, some of them.

Looking across this wide array of people...damned if I know...lol

Traveller

Canon Image Challenge16-Feb-2025 00:21
T - you can probably turn this Crime & Punishment around. You assume this return of the camera was meant to punish you. I believe you are wrong. I will postulate that the person who committed the first crime has been punishing themself all these years for their crime - not yours. They are hoping that their return of camera will help themselves relieve the self induced punishment. They were certainly not thinking about you. And the fact that you say this was a small event to you in the light of everything else that was happening means that you should have no self regret. Don't let the thief make themself the victim. They committed the Crime, and punished themselves for it.
Now, what has happened has happened and cannot be undone. It is up to you now to look forward - does this person still need help which only you can provide? That seems to be the only thing you need to think about. Can you provide help? If they turn that down, then you should have no regrets.
Jim
Canon Image Challenge15-Feb-2025 22:44
It is somewhat astonishing to me how poor my memory is on this. This has to be before my marriage to Dana which pushes the event back into the 1990s, but the 1980's seem entirely too far back. Further, it was really the gold and cash that went missing that so upset and unsettled me.

Of course, the event probably pails with me getting married and burying a new house, my partner dying of Lou Gehrig's disease and the loss of my residence and job for 22 years. This event wasn't large enough to actually register against this backdrop. What is interesting is how this camera was carried for so long and how maybe I wasn't the best friend to this troubled person who was in a period of difficulty in their life.

What seems odd is this seems to be a major regret of mine now, the now obvious fact that I was not a better person in regards to this, for many, many years stretching even to today.

So this birthday gift to me was actually my punishment for someone else's crime.

Which I deserve.

Best Wishes, Traveller
Canon Image Challenge15-Feb-2025 22:42
You know this is true, it is in the garage and it is grungy, (when did you sneak into my garage?!?) but it is all color film...however where would I develop it now? And how to scan the medium format negative into a postable format?

I did have at one time two Hollywood clients that could do this work, but both are out of business now...digital rules. (stay out of my garage!) Traveller
Canon Image Challenge15-Feb-2025 20:16
Out in the garage in a grungy dusty old filing cabinet you have 3 boxes of black & white ASA 400 medium format film. Load it up and take a few shots, we want to see how it does. The garage is a terrible place to store film just in case you forgot. Paul
Canon Image Challenge15-Feb-2025 08:43
I've checked, it was only twenty-five years ago...I think. Forty and eighty just seems like better in a literary sense. (truth be told, everything beyond 25 years ago seems a little foggy). Traveller
Canon Image Challenge15-Feb-2025 03:34
A very fine shot.
A much better story which will eventually need more detail and to be told in full.

Jim