Opinion: 'Cloud' can't replace dark room and slide show

Cousins of mine visited last month, and on one evening we engaged in a time-honored family tradition.

We hauled out our ancient slide projector, set up the wobbly screen, and gathered together for a journey into our collective childhood.

In our family, our mother was the designated photographer. Her medium of choice was Kodak film. It came in rolls of 24 or 36 exposures. With rare exception, ours was a 36-exposure family.

It might be hard for a smart-phone generation to imagine, but pictures were taken with great discretion back in those days. One 36-exposure roll might last for months. Few events, besides weddings or family reunions, warranted more than one shot, two at the most.

When she got to the end of a roll, our mother would carefully rewind the film, remove the bright yellow canister, place it in an equally bright yellow mailing sleeve, and send it first class to Kodak in Rochester, New York, for processing.

Within a couple of weeks, the images were returned by the postal service, transformed into small cardboard-framed slides, neatly wrapped in a single sheet of tissue paper, and nestled in a rectangular yellow box. (If “Kodak yellow” isn’t a color, it should be.)

They usually warranted a quick, preliminary inspection, each slide held up to a light to view the tiny image.

But the real magic happened when enough boxes accumulated (or cousins visited) to warrant a show.

A living room slide show is best experienced on a cool night when you can smoosh together with cousins on a couch as the insanely hot projector bulb and whirling fan gradually warm the room.

Our projection screen opens to a 50-by-50-inch shimmering square. One whiff of its unique smell and I am 6 years old again.

The projector — much older than I am — has the same effect. The smell, the sounds, the light, the heat are all part of the time-travel experience.

My gadget-loving Uncle Jack had a carousel tray projector that operated with a remote control — high tech engineering that we envied. We low-tech relatives always relied on the manual version, loading slides one by one, with a sweet second or two of anticipation between each image.

After we finished our late-night memory-fest with the cousins, our 22-year-old daughter sighed and said wistfully, “Where are the slides of MY youth?”

She’s right.

I’m a digital convert, and I love my pocket camera disguised as a phone.

But those images stored in “the cloud” and viewed on devices will never replace the intimate experience of gathering with your loved ones in a dark room to watch and smell and hear a slide show.

Come on over. I’ll set the screen up.

Betty Williamson wonders if Kodak yellow is the color of sentimentality. Reach her at: [email protected]