Fun with Herbert Keppler, Part 1 in a Zillion-part series

Daddy loved wearing costumes (aside from his eye-popping workaday wardrobe). This is a card he printed up for a costume party where he went as his brilliant putative ancestor. He also loved anything unusual enough to require an explanation: not the usual car, but a Fiat shaped like a toaster. Or a green-and-cream Rolls-Royce convertible. Or a tiny Suzuki Samurai, known in town as the Ice Cream Truck.

Not the usual ball-point, but a Parker Vacumatic fountain pen (delicate, crotchety, all his shirt pockets had green inkstains). Not the usual winter hat, but a deerstalker. Not the usual gift bottle of wine, but one with a label: "from the Cellars of Chez Keppler." Not the usual suburban house, but a stone house with a turquoise copper roof.

And of course, not the usual camera, but a (name the monstrously large or diabolically miniaturized, prototype). We never went to any function but he would unveil the latest strangely shaped, ultra-advanced not-yet-released model and people would gather around him crying, "What's that?"