The Tragic Hustle of the Viewfinder Keychain

Did you go on a family vacation in the 80’s? Did you and your friends go to an amusement park or state fair? While there, did you buy souvenirs and keepsakes? If you said yes, you probably had a viewfinder keychain. But with nostalgia there is a dark side.

If you went to Great America, Knotts Berry Farm, Disneyland, Six Flags, or anything like it in the 80’s, an employee holding a camera would ask you to pose, take a few shots of you, and hand you a ticket. After enjoying the park for a few hours you would take that ticket to a booth at the amusement park and the clerk would show you a plastic keychain with a unique shape to it.

One end was a viewfinder and the other end was white plastic. You would look inside the viewfinder and hold the other end to the light and inside was a picture of you and your friends! In a time before cell phones and selfies this was a magical keepsake you would spend a few dollars on, put it on your keyring and treasure it for years.

Everyone had one and every amusement park and tourist shop peddled them. Not only was it a keepsake with the logo of the park, but it had treasure inside that you could take anywhere and look at anytime you wished.

My most treasured viewfinder keychain was a trip to Great America Amusement Park with some friends in 1988. I had that thing for years. A house fire in 2001 would be the end of that and many other treasures.

In 1984 I learned how to make them.

In the mid 80’s I reconnected with my father. Summers were spent at his home in West Texas. He used to be a photojournalist and a columnist (huh) but his diagnosis of MS made the grind of working for a paper impossible. But he still loved photography and was great at it.

In the Summer of ’84 he decided to try something new. Mobile viewfinder keychains!

On the weekends we would load up a pickup truck that had a pop up camper on the bed and go to state fairs, chili cookoffs, and other assorted festivals. He would take pictures and hand people tickets, my step mother would work a folding table collecting tickets and selling the viewfinder keychains, and I was in the camper developing film, cutting it, and assembling the keychains.

Developing film in a camper in West Texas Summer heat was grueling. Seeing people look into the viewfinders and smiling and laughing as they bought them was bittersweet. Did they know I was half sick from the heat? Would it matter? This was part of my Summer life in 1984, 1985, and 1986.

In 1987 I would create memories in a solo project and make money doing it.

In my Senior year of high school I had some friends that attended Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. It was just down the street from my high school. One of them was was in a fraternity. We were hanging out in his room with some friends listening to Falco and playing role playing games.

He asked me about my photography with a local paper and if I knew other photographers. I said yes. He then told me the frat was having a big party the following week and wanted to know if I knew anyone who could do “those keychain photo things for our party”.

I said, “You’re talking to him!” and I grinned.

He asked me if I was serious and I told him I had been doing that with my dad since I was 14. Then he asked me how much it would cost. I did some math in my head and said, “I’ll need $40 upfront to get slide film, chem, and keychains. After that I just charge for the keychains.”

A few minutes later he introduces me to some of his fraternity brothers and I have $40 and a gig.

The next day I got in my 1977 Monte Carlo and drove to Chicago. I went to Central Camera in the Loop and got everything I needed. A week later I went to my first Greek party.

When I walked in, I was not a teenager. I was the photographer dude! It was a semi formal event with members of a sorority present and a DJ. There was a professional photographer with a backdrop. At first I was intimidated by his presence, but the guy was boring. I remembered watching my dad work a festival and turned on the charm.

I made sure the subjects knew they were awesome and got them to pose and scream and let loose for the camera.

As the night went on, liquor, weed and cocaine flowed with the music of the house DJ they hired.

The more high and drunk they got, the more keychains they bought and the more pictures they wanted ‘the photographer dude’ to take. Guys loved holding their props for the camera (bongs and beers) while the girls flashed for the camera or strike drunken sexy poses. I ran out of film and had to call it a night. Unlike my dad’s gigs, I had no unsold keychains. And I had made over $300 in 1987.

Within weeks I was getting calls from the frats and sororities for other parties. I had to bring in an assistant, but it had to be someone who could keep their mouth shut since not everything that happened at these parties was legal. I had enlisted the help of my friend Norah who worked at the mall and did some modeling on the side. She worked the table and I worked the party, developed, and assembled.

She was phenomenal! Norah used her beauty and sobriety to massage the fragile egos of both frat and sorority people. They were eating out of the palm of her hand. Frat guys thought they had “a shot” with an older woman (she was in her mid 20s) and Sorority girls wanted to be her.

At our second gig together I came to the table with a new batch of assembled viewfinder keychains and noticed some of the keychains were separated from the rest and highlighted with decorations. I asked her what those are.

“The red zone!” she said with a smile.

“The what?” I asked.

“I told them we are a family operation and have to charge extra for the red zone keychains!” Her grin was growing if that was possible.

“What is a red zone…Norah! What?” I was so confused.

“If there’s bongs, boobs, or bumps we charge more.” Her face was aglow.

“Is it working?” I asked.

“Most popular ones we got and I’m charging triple!” I stared at her in wonder. “Now go! Get some pics of bongs boobs and bumps!”

We cleared over $700 that night. In 1988.

The Photographer Dude and the Babe started getting calls from Greek orgs in other colleges.

Our part time hustle 2 or 3 times a month was making us more than we made in our day jobs.

It was a fun ride, until it wasn’t.

We got a gig to do keychain photos at a Frat Halloween party at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. It was at a house with a barn and it’s own pond. This was the largest party we had done yet and the crowd was wild. As the night progressed it was getting too wild. Too rowdy. Norah told me that she wanted to get out after my next batch was done. This was not a good scene.

We had seen some fights and even saw 3 people having sex with a crowd cheering them on. This was getting weird. I agreed and headed off to assemble my last batch.

When I got back to the table with what would be our last batch for Norah to sell I saw her sitting on a chair behind the table just staring nowhere. I asked her what was wrong.

“Some guys just asked me how much to shoot them gang bang that girl over there.” There was a young redhead in a Batgirl costume half passed out and slumped in a chair. Her eyes were open, but beyond the glaze there was no one home. A couple of guys were hovering near her.

“What do we do?” I asked her.

“We get out of here.” she said flatly.

“Norah!” I protested.

“Pat. You’re 18. We’re out of our element. There’s nothing we can do. We go now before they decide I’m too pretty for my own good too.” She was terrified and upset.

We packed up our stuff, left the barn, and started to walk toward the car parked in the field near the street.

By the time we got to the car Norah was sobbing. This was wrong. I opened the trunk of my Monte Carlo, started to put my gear in and stood there.

I grabbed the tire iron that was in my trunk and handed Norah my car keys. She looked at me. “You keep the engine running and if you have to go, you go.” I said.

“Pat,” She said. “What are you doing?”

“Not sure yet.” And with that I walked back toward the barn as I ignored Norah’s demands for me to come back.

A few minutes later I was half carrying and walking Batgirl to my car. I was a few feet away when I was shoved from behind. Batgirl and I tumbled to the ground. I looked up at two guys in their 20’s who were very mad. One of them started to lean down toward me when my tire iron wielded by Norah hit the back of his head.

He screamed, looked at her and called her a bitch. So she did it again. Now he just screamed kneeling on the ground and his friend did nothing.

I scooped up Batgirl. Norah helped me get her into the backseat. Moments later the Monte Carlo spat gravel and sped into the night.

We took batgirl to the nearest hospital. She was barely conscience and neither of us knew what else to do. We had assumed police would be involved, but that did not happen. A woman who worked at the hospital just wanted to know if either of us were related to her. When we said no they rushed her off and told us to leave.

We got in the Monte, neither of us saying a word. Along the tollway was an Oasis with a McDonalds. Norah told me to stop there. I did. As soon as I parked the car she got out and vomited in the parking lot.

I asked her if she was okay.

“No, Pat!” She screamed. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wanted to help her.” I said.

“And I am so glad we did, but we both could have been hurt.”

“So what? We do nothing?” I asked.

Norah was screaming now, “I’m married Pat! I have a family! You got something good with Cassie! We help when we can but we could have gotten hurt. We should have left and called the police.”

“But we didn’t get hurt,” I said.

“I’m pregnant! You threatened that! And Cassie? She doesn’t need a dead hero. She needs you! And I’ve never hit another person in my life!”

I reached into my pocket and grabbed a cigarette. My hands shook as I lit it. I leaned against my car and took a deep drag.

After a few minutes Norah came over and hugged me. “C’mon kid. Want some nuggets?” she said.

“Yeah.” I said weakly. “I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

A part of me loves the idea that there are some people a few years older than me that still have a keychain photo of happier days in their homes. Photos I took. Another part of me ties the short lived hustle with that night. And the reason I don’t tell how I got Batgirl away is because I was more stupid than I was heroic.

This is the double edge blade of nostalgia. Many of the young people who took our pictures at amusement parks were horribly underpaid compared to professional photographers, treated poorly, and may have had safer working conditions if they were a nine year old in a coal mine. Our tourism mementos even today often come at a cost to people.

On one hand no one gets hurt when we take a selfie. On the other hand, the pictures we take sit in our phones and the cloud and are not treasured for years. They collect virtual dust as more are taken.

Balance. I wish I could say I knew the proper balance. I don’t.

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