Kodak had one of its old film factories in Rochester imploded Saturday morning.
Is/was there a company more American than Kodak? I'm sure every home in the country contained at least one Kodak product. We bought film in those little yellow boxes for decades. I can still see shelf after shelf, type after type on display in film shops and camera stores. Hess's in the Viewmont Mall had a great display. Its shelves were at an angle, in a diamond pattern. It was impressive.
When I was young, you'd take pictures, take the film to the mom and pop variety store up the street, and if you were lucky, you got the pictures back in a week. Good or bad, you paid. It wasn't cheap. No wonder digital took off. I can take a picture and get it on the internet, or on tv in seconds.
Kodak lost its way. It filed for bankruptcy protection. The company was late getting in to the digital game, and its products were said to be sub par. Still, it had the name and the stuff was easy to use.
Watching that film factory go down in a cloud of dust made me sad. That's my childhood. That's your childhood, if you're over 30.
The world is a scary place. You can be at the top of the business world one minute, and a Kodak memory the next.
