by the dozen

I think it was late 1996 or early 1997 the last time I saw Grandad. He and Carolyn were travelling by car to or from somewhere on the East coast. Now the memory is somewhat vague. I found on old email dated 8 January 1997 with this summary, "meet mother and vernon at barretts seafood restaurant to have lunch with grandad and carolyn. nice to see him. he eats raw oysters and she crab soup and a whole dish of tartar sauce. has jumbo martini. i have the salmon. grandad still himself but hair seems impossibly white and he seems to be aging over the years. how old he must be, say eighty five years." I don't recall if he had two or three dozen oysters. I think I drove my old Mercedes 300D there but the memory fades in and out. We both needed a cane by then. I had an old Zeiss camera which shot an an uncommon film size. I don't recall now where I got the camera, maybe a yard sale? I don't recall where I got the film either. Maybe I had to get a different type, 126 perhaps, unwind it from its spool and re-wind it onto the old Zeiss roller in the dark. Maybe I did that in the bathroom with no windows and a towel blocking the light from coming in under the door. Later in that email I wrote, "o i attempted to take photographs. sent film to bruce for development." By April 1997 I must have received the film back and scanned it. The jpeg file is dated 13 April 1997. It was the last photo I ever took of Grandad. And Carolyn. Who was looking stylish as ever. I'm not even sure I took it. Maybe I got Ross to take it. I wonder where that camera is now. Probably sitting on a shelf somewhere. I wonder if it still works. Now I've just found another email which proves definitively that this last meal and photograph occurred maybe the day before, of, or after Christmas. In yet another email I wrote about this photo, "with grandad is often carolyn, wife of grandad, eager holder of cigarette after nonsmoking lunch." Although I don't remember it specifically, I can visualize her holding the cigarette discreetly while the photo was being taken, waiting until after the shutter clicked to light it.