Randall's Blog

Recently I digitized a bunch of home movies onto my computer. I had previously digitized almost all of my slides and negatives and old family photographs. Hard drive space is so cheap now that hours of video fit comfortably on my laptop hard drive. Some of these movies were pretty amusing. Others contain footage of my father before he died and there was plenty of footage of my children when they were younger. There were many short video updates done when I was fixing up a house I owned with my 2nd wife in Amsterdam NY. Unfortunately, that house and all the work that we did on it has joined the many thousands of abandoned and decaying homes all across the country.

It's not that I wish I still lived there or regret my decision to move to Boston in the late 90s. It's just that I'm saddened that the work I did was essentially wasted. I spent quite a bit of time on a property in Patchogue NY in a house and a barn that my great-grandfather built. The property was a summer home for him and his family starting in the 1920s. He used an odd construction method, pouring concrete between 2x4s to create walls of wood and concrete. That property eventually made its way to my mother's aunt and then to my mother. She sold it in 2000 and eventually the old buildings were torn down and new houses were built on the property. As far as I can tell, nothing remains of what my great-grandfather built. I'm beginning to wonder if anything I create in my lifetime will remain for future generations.

My mother and her grandmother in front of the Patchogue barn September 1928 - 83 years ago:

To my knowledge my own father never built anything, never created anything - yet he had a lasting impact on people. In his barbershop he had a captive audience and would extol the virtues of healthy eating, exercise etc. to anyone who stopped in. My mother went through a phase where she painted and I still have her watercolors and oil paintings. She also kept many journals but another question is will anyone read them? I have written a book chapter, a masters thesis and a dissertation. I can see that people download the dissertation from time to time. I can't tell if anyone actually reads it. I do have some scientific papers in academic journals and I can tell if they are cited. Some are pretty well cited but will they mean anything in 100 years? I doubt it.

I know I'm only 50 but I'm starting to wonder what (if anything) I will leave behind of lasting value. I've started working on a book project with Rebecca. I hope it turns out to be something valuable enough that future generations will read it but I guess we have little control over things like that. Hopefully, I still have lots of time to write and create.

Moving along, Debbie and I have been doing more short trips this summer. We did some hiking, made a trip to Boston, Hew Hampshire & Maine (cut short by Irene), and to Cooperstown NY. I went to Florida for Lowell & Turtle's engagement party (which was a lot of fun) and to Cleveland to finish work on a project for Dave & Kathie.

Debbie & I tabled at LarkFest for AVN. We have the Albany vegetarian food festival coming up next Saturday 10/1 and the Boston vegetarian food festival at the end of October. We are still waiting for results from Debbie's bar exam. We are both volunteering - hours are good, pay not so much.

I can't say that our garden was a great producer this year but we have gotten a steady stream of veggies to eat.

In Cooperstown: