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Pose, smile, click. The Linton family of Costa Mesa has done a lot of that over the years, but not just any old posing and smiling and clicking.

Michelle and James Linton’s first date was at the Orange County Fair in 1999. During the always-problematic search for what to do on a first date, they popped into a photo booth and snapped the customary vertical strip of snaps. We’ve all done it — squeeze into the booth, someone sits on someone’s lap then try to decide whether to do silly or serious or smiley with every shot.

But the Lintons do it a little differently. At every Orange County Fair since that first date a decade ago, they have captured the moments in time that get cobbled together to make a life — more dates, a marriage, a family. Over the years, the booth got a little crowded with the addition of their two daughters, Ryann and Reese, but the Linton’s are undeterred. It may be an off-center tradition, but it’s their tradition and they’re sticking with it. Personally, I think it’s great.

I squeezed into a lot of photo booths in my misspent youth. They’re hard to find these days, but then, in the Pleistocene era, photo booths were everywhere, including in every drug store and five-and-dime.

If my friends and I ever stumbled out of a photo booth with anything resembling a serious or smiling picture, it was a mistake — an error that happened only because someone pushed the button before we were ready. “Ready” meant making the goofiest, most ridiculous face you could muster, which we could then laugh at uncontrollably for hours. It was a simpler time.

Amusement parks and arcades were dripping with photo booths. We crammed into the photo booths on the arcade at Playland on Rye Beach all summer long, perfecting the art of dumb faces and offensive gestures. What happened to all those pictures, thousand upon thousands of them? I have no idea. But all that matters is they’re gone, thank you for that.

Who came up with those things anyway? As it turns out, it was a man named Anatol Josepho. Besides having too many vowels in his name, Josepho set up the first photo booth on Broadway in New York in 1925. A gizmo where you, or you and your sweetie, or you and your schnauzer could disappear behind a curtain for a few seconds and emerge with instant pictures of yourself in tow took the country, and the world, by storm. Why? Simple. Believe it or not, cameras were a pretty big deal in ancient times, and taking pictures was not that easy.

When it came to cameras, most families had a grand total of one. The first camera I remember was a sleek black Kodak with a pull-out bellows. My mother bought it before she was married, and it was one of her prized possessions. I was taught early on that touching it would be the last thing I would remember doing in this life. Our next camera was one that only we and three gazillion other people had — a Brownie Hawkeye — the boxy little Bakelite workhorse that recorded the big and small moments in every American’s life in the 1950s and ’60s. It was simple to load (127 film) and beyond idiot-proof. If you tossed one to a gerbil and pointed to the shutter, he could shoot pretty decent pictures with it.

But even if you had a camera, taking pics was nothing like it is in these fully digital, still or video, instantly e-mail-able times. You had to buy film, load film, take pictures, wait until the roll was done, unload film, take it to a drug store then wait days to get your pictures back — and that’s when went everything went right. Photo booths, on the other hand, were a sneak preview of the instant gratification that we live for today. It was like having a digital camera 50 years before they were invented. Sit down, pull the curtain, click, wait a few seconds — pictures. Unbelievable. Speaking of curtains, do we need to explain why they only reach halfway to the floor? I didn’t think so. Strange things go on in public places.

The same feeling explains why we all went bonkers when Polaroid cameras arrived in the 1950s. Again, instant pictures. It was a miracle I tell you. The first Polaroids were a pain, with a special goop you had to smear on the picture so it didn’t fade away. Worse yet, even when they worked, they weren’t very good. Didn’t matter. You snap a picture the thing spits it out. There was nothing left in the world to event.

Am I the only person that gives a second thought to photo booths? I am not. There are boatloads of photo booth photo exhibits around the country, some made from photo booth shots collected over the years and others from photo booth shots taken specifically for the exhibit. So even if photo booths are just a little leftover of Americana today, I say two thumbs up to the Linton family for keeping the tradition alive. Will life go on without photo booths? Of course it will. It’ll be a little less fun though. Wait. Stay like that. That’s perfect. Click. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected] .