Cameras we owned

When I was a teenager I got a Polaroid One Step camera. It was a real novelty as you were able to take a picture and then watch it develop right before your eyes. Film was quite expensive even though it was just Black and White, and quality was very poor.

In High School I became interested in photography and I purchased all the supplies necessary to develop black and white film in a dark-room. (I used our bathroom and taped over all the places that would have let light in.) I also bought an enlarger which I used to print my own photos.

Since the chemicals were sensitive to light I used to keep them in a brown one gallon A&W Root Beer glass jug.

When I went to university the first year my Dad let me take his 35 mm camera. It looked like the one in this picture and it had a leather case. It was not a Single Lens Reflex camera. It had a view finder. At BYU Mary and I took another class in photography and we spent some quality time in a darkroom on campus . . . developing film and printing pictures. Unfortunately Dad’s camera was stolen so it never made it home from college.

Nikon L35AF2 (1985) This is the last 35 mm camera that we used. We used it for taking most of the pictures that we have in our many photo binders. We purchased film that cost about $5.00 per roll of 36 pictures. After we completed a roll of film (which was often so long after you started using the roll that you forgot what was on it) we then sent the film away in the mail to a low cost processing plant somewhere along ways away. We would then wait for 3 weeks and get back our photographs printed on 3X4 inch photo paper only to find that some of the pictures were out of focus or they cut off someone’s head etc. It would cost about 20 cents per picture to get them developed and about $2.00 per roll to send them away. If we wanted them sooner we would take them to Costco, or London Drugs because they had their own processing labs, but it was more expensive than sending them away. If it was Costco we would have to go back there after about 3 or 4 days and look through tons of orders to see if ours was done yet. If it was not done . . . all you could do is go back the next day to check again. We took a lot more pictures than most of the people we knew.

For many years Mary earned money by taking pictures of house for Atkinson & Terry Insurance. In the early years she used a Polaroid camera like this one. She would put Mike or Brian in the car and plan out a route that would get about 20 houses. She would travel all over the Lower Mainland and she became very good at it.

Eventually the polaroid camera gave way to the digital camera. This Fujifilm FinePix 2600 camera (2001) originally cost about $250.00. It featured a 3X auto-focus lens and the ability to record short video clips (although without sound). It had a 2.1 megapixel optical sensor, and 16MB of storage. That was enough storage for 20 to 30 pictures depending on the image size. It actually took better pictures than we were getting with the polaroid and it was much more cost effective.

Our next camera was this Canon PowerShot S50. It was a 5 mega pixel camera. In 2003 it cost about $600.00. It could do movie clips (including audio) at 15fps, max 3 min.

Our next camera was a Nikon Coolpix P7000. It cost about $500.00 in 2010 and had a 10 MP sensor with a 7X zoom lens.

Nikon Coolpix S640 (2009) 12.2 Megapixels, ultra-fast start-up and 5X wide-angle Zoom. This camera was nice because it was easy to carry it in your pocket. It did not have a view finder but rather a 2.7 inch display on the back that you look at to frame the picture.

The camera that I bought in 2014 is the first DSLR that I have owned. Nikon D3100. It is an entry level SLR with 14.2 megapixels and it can capture full HD movies. (1920x1080)

The only lens that I have at this point is a AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR. The camera was actually released in 2010 and cost about $550.00 At this time all of our children have much better cameras than this but this one seems to meet my interest level and I take a lot of pictures but many of them are taken on my phone or my GoPro.

GoPro Hero 3+ Silver edition This little camera cost about $400. It takes 1080p movies at 30 or 60 fps or 720p movies at 120 fps. It is easy to carry around and has accessories so you can attach it almost anywhere.

As of Jul 2018 I take most of my pictures on my cell phone. I probably take 100 pictures per month but that is because we use our cell phones to take pictures of products in a store so we can remember the price or damage to things that we want to show someone else, or documents that we want to keep a digital record of, or meals that we are eating, or the deer in our yard, or many other things that we would never have used a camera for in the days before cell phones.

Cars that Mom and Dad had

My Dad’s Cars When I was born my parents had a 1947 Dodge like the one in this picture. (their’s was green). Dad started work with Royalite Oil Company which was later acquired by Imperial Oil. His entire working life was in the Oil industry as a “Land Manager”, buying and selling properties, and maintaining leases.

The next car that I remember was their 1957 Dodge Custom Royal which is featured in this picture with a bunch of people standing in front of it. They would be Dad’s mother, Janet, Mom in the car, me and Grandpa Walton and Bryce.

I never drove this car but this is the car I learned to drive on because I would stand up behind the driver’s seat and watch everything that Dad did.

The next car was a 1960 Dodge Polara. Yes it had large fins on the back just for style. Ours was dark brown. This is the first car that I actually drove.

Dad’s next car was a 1965 Dodge Polara 4 door hardtop. (ours was red) This is the car that I took my first road trip on my own. Dad asked me to drive down to Taber to pick up Mom. I remember it being an awesome time as I loved to drive and I appreciated the confidence that Dad had in me.

Dad had a reputation for buying cars. When he left the house he asked Mom if she had any preference and she said “buy any car you want as long as it’s red” Dad came back a few hours later with a new red car. That is so different from the way that I buy cars. I look and compare and study for a long time before I buy a car.

This is a 1970 Mercury Marquis Brougham 4 door hard top (Ours was red) Dad bought it in Taber from Uncle Lou Conrad’s ford Dealership.

After this Dad had another Ford . . . I think it was a Grand Torino brougham but I am not exactly sure.

While I was away from home Dad also bought a Volvo 144. I was shocked because it was so different than what he had driven before, and it was a car that I thought very highly of. He didn’t like it however and sold it within a year of buying it.

I think that I have lost track of which cars came next but when they were living in White Rock BC they bought a new 1990 Plymouth Acclaim. He also bought a used Lincoln Town Car that he had for a few months at the same time as his Plymouth.

They also had a Nissan Altima:

The last car they had was a “Red” Toyota Camry

My next car . . . Envoy Epic

My next car was an 1964 Envoy Epic

My friend Martin Hornberger had a Vauxhall Viva which was the exact same car only with a different name. This was a fun car. At the same time our friend Lloyd Nielson had a VW beetle. In this car I took my mother on a trip to Burley Idaho to visit her sister Alene Burgie. On that trip the muffler fell off so it was quite loud and then on the way home the engine seized up when we were a few miles south of the boarder. Uncle Lou Conrad who owned a Ford Dealership (Superior Motors) in Taber drove down with his tow-truck and picked up the car. Taking that car on the trip was an expensive way to save on gas. I used this car until I went to BYU. My first year at BYU I did not have a car.

On my mission in California I drove 1969 Rambler American 2 door sedan with no radio. This was the last year that the car was made and even though they were “New” cars they had “no comeliness” and their main feature was that they fostered humility. I am just kidding . . . I was very fortunate because for my entire mission I had a car and was never posted to a bicycle area. This car was advertised with seat belts and head rests.

The picture above was taken in front of Sister Soaper’s home in Napa. She was a wonderful old sister who rented out a back room to the missionaries. I can remember that she was very hard of hearing and if we entered the house and she didn’t see us it would give her a terrible start when she actually did. There were many times that we would back out of the room and try to make a lot of noise so that we didn’t scare her to death.

The next cars that we got in our mission were the bran-new AMC Hornets. They had an MSRP of $1,994.00 They were a step up from the old Ramblers but they were still very austere and economical.

When I came home from my mission and went back to BYU for the second year, thanks to my parents I was able to buy a car. I had a budget of $400.00. The first car that caught my eye was a 1963 Chevy Impala 2 door hardtop with a 327 cu in engine and a 4 speed manual transmission. It had a modified muffler system with glass pack pipes and it made a very distinctive rumble. I took about 4 weeks and looked at maybe 20 other cars before I decided to buy the first one that I looked at. I had it narrowed down to the Chevy or a Plymouth Barracuda.

I loved this car . . . even though it was about 10 years old when I bought it. It had a full bench seat in the front and each side would move forward to allow people into the back seat. I had this car when I was dating Mary. The shifter was on the floor and she would sit right next to me. I would put my arm around her and she would shift while we were driving. The car had a great heater and we spent quite a bit of time in it talking about life and families and stuff like that. It made enough noise that when I drove up the back alley to the parking area behind Mary’s house she would know that I was there.

After we were engaged Mary’s folks came up from Las Vegas for a visit to meet me and check things out. After we had said good by we were both driving away Mary’s parents in their car and Mary and I in mine. Her Dad flashed his lights and pulled me over. He said I just wanted to let you know that when you get married we plan to give you our car. (I have always thought of it as a sort of package deal.)

Fos and Reva’s 1966 Pontiac Bonneville 2-door hardtop.

Fos liked nice cars. This one would have cost about $3,750 in 1966. In that year the average car cost 2,650.00 the average household income was 6,900.00, the average home cost 14,200.00 and a gallon of gas cost $.32. This car got 16 mpg on a good day. The engine was a 6.4 L (389 cu in)V8 that produced 325 HP When you look at it 32 cents per gallon seems like very cheap gas but wait. If gas cost us the same amount in comparison to the value of our house then gas would cost $18.03 per gallon. . . but it only costs $2.09 at Costo in the USA today.

Gas $ .32	This is what the price of gas would be: $18.30
Average House in US $14,200.00 in 1966	Ave house price . . lower mainland $ 812,400 in Nov of 2016

Or expressed another way . . . if the price of houses went up the same as the cost of gas then a house should be worth 92,743 not $812,400. Our gas is really cheap now compared to housing.

When we left Provo and moved up to Edmonton we pulled a trailer that was loaned to us by Terry Wolsey. When we think back on it now we laugh because we put so much stuff in that trailer that we bent the axil (sorry Terry). As we were driving through Idaho we hit a bump and the weld that held the trailer hitch to the back bumper broke. The hitch swung down and dragged along the ground until we could get the car stopped. It was problematic but the stuff that we brought back was mostly junk, like the old green sofa that we had purchased for $5.00 and the stack of bricks that I had used to make a book shelf.

Our next car was a 1970 Toyota Corona

This is a picture taken when we lived in Edmonton. Lisa was expecting Scott at the time.

My First Cars

1959 Hillman Minx like the one I had

Driving

I was interested in cars from a very young age. Before seat belts were invented I used to stand up in the back behind my Dad and watch everything that he did. I knew what every knob and lever was for and I wanted to drive so bad that I could hardly wait. Dad would let me sit on his lap and steer the car. Then when I was 14 and we were out on a pheasant hunting trip together he let me drive for the first time. After that he would let me take the car out of the garage which was in the back alley and drive it around to the front when we were ready to go to church or something. The first time that I drove the car in the city was when Dad and I were working at the Church (building the crescent road chapel) He remembered that Mom needed the car to go get her hair done. He didn’t want to leave what he was doing so he said here David . . . take the key and drive the car home so your mother can use it. I think that was the best day of my life, to that point.

My first car

I was looking at cars all the time but nothing had been discussed in our home about buying another car (that I can remember) Certainly Dad and I had never looked at cars before this. One night I told him that there was a car for sale advertised in the paper for $450.00. To my amazement he said OK lets go look at it. By the time we got to the place in south Calgary it was almost dark but we looked at the car and within a few minutes I heard my dad say to the owner “Will you take $400.00 for it?” The owner said yes and that was it. We had a second car. Technically it was a 2^nd car for the family, but it had a standard transmission and my Mother never drove it once. I can’t remember my Dad ever driving it either.

The car was a 1959 Hillman Minx with a 4 cylinder 1.5 liter engine and 54 horsepower. It had a standard transmission with a four speed gear shift on the column. All gears were synchromesh except first. The shift pattern was very different from any American or German cars. I think 1^st was back and up, 2^nd back and down, 3^rd forward and up and 4^th forward and down. I had so much fun in that car. Mostly I guess it was the freedom to explore all over Calgary and beyond. I used to use the car to go pick up my papers from the shack. I would bring the papers home, roll them with an elastic band and then deliver them on my bike. In those days we would ride along on the sidewalk and throw the newspaper onto the porch. A perfect throw would be to hit the door and drop on the mat in front. In those days we had to collect payment once per month from each of our customers by knocking on their door and receiving cash. If we didn’t get paid that was our problem, but I don’t remember not being paid, what I remember is that everyone gave a tip to the paper boy at Christmas and it was great.

When I had this car my Dad employer (Imperial Oil) had a competition to see how many credit cards they go get signed up in a certain time period. I guess the pressure was on Dad so he signed me up for an ESSO credit card and made it clear that I was the one to pay the bill. This was great. None of my friends had credit cards and I can remember it would cost $3.50 - $4.00 to fill up the car and the bill at the end of the month would be $12.00.

My next car was a huge 1955 Dodge Custom Royal with a big engine and no power steering. We bought from Frank Pitcher who was our Stake patriarch. It was three-tone yellow, white and green. Notice the push button gear selector to the left side of the wheel. You pushed a button to select drive or reverse etc. I had this car when I was attending William Aberhart high school and I can remember sitting in my last class before lunch looking out at my car parked along the road wishing I could start it remotely so it could be warmed up when I got in it to drive home for lunch. This car was great for dates and driving friends around but the cost for gas was much higher than the Hillman and we didn’t have it long before we got my next car.

1955 Dodge Custom Royal (mine was yellow, green and white . . . just like the picture)

David . . . I worked as a window washer

King George School . . . we washed the windows on many schools like this

Banff Springs Hotel . . . we would travel to Banff to wash the windows in the public areas of this hotel

Palliser Hotel Calgary1965 Plymouth Station wagon like the one owned by my Uncle Harold Walton

Currie Barracks Calgary where we had a contract to wash the windows

I worked as a window washer. I started when I was about 14 and worked until I went to BYU.

The first work that I did for my uncle Harold was to was his car. He came over on a Saturday morning to pick up my Dad to go golfing. I was too young to golf but he asked me to wash his car and I did the very best job that I could do. He paid me well and this was the beginning of a long working relationship with Harold. I learned how to wash windows and use ladders and my friend Martin and I worked for him on Saturdays and over the summers for several years. He had a contract to do all of the schools in Calgary. Many of them were the old sandstone buildings like the one in the picture. We would climb the ladder to the 3^rd floor and stand on the ledge to wash the window. Then without moving the ladder we would move over to the next window, wash it and then the third window and the forth and then make our way back to the ladder and climb down. This was considered skillful and efficient window washing since we didn’t have to climb up and down the ladder 4 times. We also used a swing stage for higher buildings. It had steel cables that were secured on the roof and then an electric motor that you used to raise and lower it. I remember doing the windows on tall buildings downtown and having to put methyl hydrate into the water so that it would not freeze when we were washing the windows. One time Martin and I were washing the windows on a school that had some steel beams that extended about a foot away from the wall. (they were just for decoration) When we took the swing stage up we had to push against the wall to move the swing stage away from the wall in order to get past the steal beams. On the way down we forgot about the beams so all of a sudden the swing stage tipped violently and once we realized what was happening we rushed to the switch and turned it to up. Unfortunately because the electric motor was still running it did not reverse directions it just continued to go down. Before we got it stopped the swing stage was hanging at a drastic slant snagged on the steel beam with the steel cables both slack carrying no weight. Once we turned the switch to off and let the motor stop we were able to turn it back to up and regain safe operation. It was a very memorable experience for me.

We washed the windows of the Palliser Hotel in Calgary. Instead of using ladders or a swing stage we would go to each room and open the window stand on the ledge to wash it and then climb back in. On the 11^th floor there was a one foot ledge around the building so we would wash one window and then carefully move to the next window (with our bucket of water and our squeegee) and so on then we would make our way back to the original window where we would go inside the building again. Safety ropes had not been invented at that time I guess.

One of our favorite jobs was doing the Banff Springs Hotel. We would all ride up with Harold in his brand new 1965 Plymouth station wagon and he would make arrangements for us to have lunch in the huge dining hall where all the hotel staff ate. This was a real treat. I also remember that Harold trusted me to drive his new car which was very impressive to me.

We also had the contract to wash all the windows at Currie Barracks (Canadian Forces Base Calgary) This was a job that took about a month and we spent many long hours working on our own. This base had been a flight training school during the 2^nd world war so they had several old wooden aircraft hangers that no longer held aircraft. One day when we had completed one building we needed to cross the parade square with our ladders and buckets etc so we just walked across. When we got to the other side there was a military guy there who was angry with us because apparently your not supposed to walk across a parade square. When he found out we were civilian contractors he was even more upset and he warned us that we were likely to be fired. We didn’t get fired. The best thing about working at the base was that we were able to eat at the mess hall. This was a new experience for me as you could have as much as you wanted of whatever they had and they had lots. I was embarrassed because when I asked the cook for eggs he asked me how I wanted them. I had never been asked how I wanted my eggs before . . . my mom just cooked them and gave them to me. I quickly learned to say “Over easy” thanks.

One interesting thing about working for Uncle Harold was that he liked to pay us in front of other people while we were at church. He would make a big fuss about it and say . . . how much do I owe you David? (he knew how much he owed us as he kept very good records) and then he would pull out a big roll of bills from his pocket and peal off 34 bucks or something. We liked this too as I remember because he paid us well and we made more money than any of our friends.

For many years he had the contract to wash the windows on the Eatons store in downtown Calgary. During the summer we would go there at the beginning of each day and wash the windows before the store opened.