WEE, BEADY EYES: Two eras in American consumer culture appear to be ending -- Polaroid is getting out of the Polaroid business, abandoning instant photography to focus on digital cameras and printers, while the Wall Street Journal reports that Kentucky Fried Chicken may be moving to a "nonfried chicken platform" in the coming year.
When I was growing up, my dad would take us on Sunday mornings in the summer to the hotels where visiting baseball teams were staying. We'd flag a player checking out and preparing to board the team bus to the Vet, and Todd and I would pose with the player as my dad shot a Polaroid of us, then quickly move to get the player to sign the picture while it was still developing. There's a wall in Todd's room back at our mom's house of about 50 photos of us with various players and coaches -- Ozzie Smith, Tom Glavine, Yogi Berra, Andy Van Slyke -- and now, weirdly, that's becoming impossible. What an odd technological development -- that the ubiquity of digital and cell phone cameras have made instant printing a thing of the past.
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