I meant to take my Nikon FG-20 to San Diego but when I was packing the bag I wasn’t paying attention and I grabbed my Dad’s Pentax K1000. No biggie, I love that camera. I just worry about traveling with it because I don’t want to damage it.
Spoiler alert…
I loaded a roll of Kodacolor 200 while we were in the hotel and then I shot it at Pacific Beach and at the Organ Pavilion at Balboa Park. When it ran out I tried to put in another roll. It wouldn’t unwind. Huh? I got it loaded but when I tried to take a shot I couldn’t advance the film. It was jammed up badly. What the hell? I assumed it was the film canister and opened the back, flashing the hell out of the unrolled film, and rolled it back into the can and tried to reload it. Same thing.
I declared the roll of film dead and loaded another one… and the exact same thing happened. I thought I must have somehow mangled the advance mechanism. The roll itself seemed to get jammed into the slot and I couldn’t move it at all.
I was so mad… and sad… and heartbroken… and mad. Dad is no longer with us and I had this silly little thing that he bought in the 80’s and then forgot about and never used again but it was his and now its with me and I was just so fucking mad at the idea of it being dead.
This morning as I was getting ready for the day (mattress shopping is first on the agenda) I opened it up and tried again using the same roll of film that got stuck on the second try yesterday. It loaded up without issue and seems to be working fine. I don’t know what I did different yesterday (nothing) but it seems okay now.
Major sigh of relief over here. Let’s see if there are any troubles going forward. Fingers crossed.
Inside the Red Head's Head 