Yellow father

Yesterday (Tuesday, August 2, 2011) the Mighty Mezz ran a photograph (illustrated above) which brought back memories of my life during the early ‘70s; a life ruled by Kodak — “Yellow father.”
It’s color-ink cartridges; not the Kodak stuff I knew, but the same strident yellow boxes.
Kodak yellow was everywhere.
I had a darkroom at that time, a converted bathroom in our apartment.
I had covered the window with black cardboard and electrical-tape, and sealed off the door by various means.
I had to scrunch a throw-rug against the door-bottom.
It had to be pitch-dark in there when I turned out the light.—No light leaking in anywhere.
I was buying 35mm film in bulk, and rolling my own, usually Tri-X.
I was also souping it with Acufine®, a hot developer that ratcheted Tri-X up to 1200 ASA, 2400 if I could stand the grain. (Tri-X was normally ASA 400.)
Sometimes you had to stand graininess to pull an image out of the fog, or available-light.
I wasn’t using flash; I never got the hang of it. Always available-light. I could hand-hold steady down to 1/15th.
I’d bicycle to good old LeBeau Photo on Lyell (“lile”) Ave., and pedal home with a giant yellow box of 500 sheets of Kodak 8x10 PolyContrast print paper — and yellow boxes of dry chemicals for mixing.
Like Dektol print-developer, and hypo, and hypo-clear. There also was a liquid fixer concentrate.
Souping Tri-X was just a short kiss with Acufine; beyond that it bleached out. Plus-X never worked, and Panatomic was only acceptable.
Tri-X with a kiss got printable shadow detail.
Thankfully my darkroom is retired, with all its foul-smelling chemicals.
Replaced by Photoshop® on this MAC. (Ah, dryness.)
A guy I knew at the Mighty Mezz still had a darkroom, and would develop prints he hung in his cubical.
I wonder if he can still do that? Tri-X and PolyContrast are last century.
I now have a digital camera (I remember when the Mighty Mezz switched to digital; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth).
Yellow father is gone. So is LeBeau Photo with its many yellow boxes.
The other day I drove past Kodak Park. Hardly anything was left.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Lyell Ave.” is a main east-west street on the west side of Rochester.
• RE: “bleached out......” —The black parts of the film (the shadows) would overdevelop.
• “Kodak Park” was a gigantic facility in Rochester where Kodak made its film, and did its color processing. It was self-contained — had its own fire-department and railroad. —A lot of it was demolished.