The fountain of youth resides in a pixel

The graduate checked out my December 12^th blog and noted the picture of me and Al from 1977.  We were facebook chatting  late one night, and the discussion went as follows: 

12:04am

Him:  i really really really regret that i'll never have old photographs to look back on that look as much like old photographs as that one of you and dad on your blog today.  i resent digital technology.

12:05am

Me:  :-)

Grandma took it with a very crummy 'instamatic camera' - no aperture control, no focus control, no shutter speed control...just click and there is your photo. It is what almost everyone had back then. SLR's were very rare.

I should say, click, finish the roll of film sometime in the next year, take to the drugstore and pick up the prints a week later, and there is your photo. I skipped a couple of steps in there somehow!

12:10am

Him:  haha yeah... just man.

film grain.

so good.

12:10am

Me:  Hmmm....I guess it has its charms

12:11am

Him:  "crappy" and old is so in these days.

the aesthetics of degradation are so hip.

12:11am

Me:  I am aging at just the right time then, eh?

I went off to bed feeling rather good about myself, knowing that showing my age is hip.  But, really, Eric raises an interesting point.  We boomer babies have worked very hard to eliminate all evidence of aging.  People have long sought eternal youth, but our generation has almost found it!   Think about it, Sally Field  is 64 and Paul McCartney is 68.   They certainly don’t look it!  Personally, I haven’t worried too much about wrinkles or gray hairs, but I have become, unwittingly, a cheerleader for perpetual perfection.

How so?

Technology!

My Dad, 1946

While my son might like the grainy, fading images of yore, I fully embrace digital photography for a whole host of reasons.  Convenience, control, less waste, more immediacy, etc.  And to honest, I include among those reasons that digital images don’t fade, as he  pointed out.  The photographs of my children taken after 1998 will never change.   The photographs of the places we’ve been will become dated only if the places change;  the images will look as sharp and vibrant in 50 years as they did the day they were taken.

 

The same with music!  We grew up listening to LP’s that clearly showed signs of age:  scratches and skips, the warble of warp-age.  And,  cassette tape was just distortion waiting to happen.  CD’s eliminated the warbles and distortions, but were still prone to skips and scratches.  But digital music downloaded for an iPod remains perfect forever.  My iPod stores hundreds of hours of music, no skips, no scratches, no warbles, no distortion.  I can carry it anywhere and listen to whatever I want, pretty much whenever I want.  And it always does and always will sound great!

Likewise, my Kindle allows me to travel with hundreds, even thousands, of books contained in a space about the size of a normal paperback. The pages will never tear, yellow or become dog-eared.   And digital movies will always remain crisp, sharp and vibrant.  The film doesn’t stretch, break or scratch.

I am not about to make a case for returning to the old ways.  Like I said, I am a cheerleader for digital technology.  I love my Kindle, my iPod, my camera, and DVD movies.  I am of the generation that worked to create permanent perfection, but I find it interesting that the next generation has developed an appreciation for the aesthetics of natural degradation and embraces imperfection.  

And so, the pendulum swings….back and forth….back and forth.

Today I am grateful for Christmas—the season of generosity and goodwill,  of light in the dark of winter, of love for family and friends.  Like Ebenezer Scrooge, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. “

Blog pre-empted

Tonight's blog has been pre-empted by an important family event.  We will return to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

The graduate

Eric graduated today from the University of Michigan with a Bachelors of Fine Arts.  His focus has been on sound design and sound engineering for film.

With the proud parents

And the happy sister

And with Sarah

Today I am grateful for our son.  We are immensely proud!

Today in History

Today is an important day in the history of the world, one that Al and I celebrate annually.  A quick scan of the day's events should reveal the reason.

• December 12,1792:   22 year old Ludwig von Beethoven had his first lesson in music composition from Franz Joseph Haydn.
• December 12, 1800:  Washington D.C. was established as the capital of the United States.
• December 12, 1913:  the Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre after having been stolen two years earlier.
• December 12, 1946:  Tide detergent was introduced to the world.
• December 12, 1957: Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin, while still legally married to his first  (presumably somewhat older) wife
• December 12, 1965:   the Beatles gave their last formal concert in Great Britain.
• December 12, 1976:  Al Huntley kissed Deb Robsky for the first time.
• December 12,  2007:  Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose at 76.

Well, ok.   Ludwig van Beethoven is my favorite composer of all time, but we do not celebrate his first composition lesson.  We do use Tide detergent, but its introduction is not enough to warrant a special glass of wine.  Jerry Lee Lewis' wedding anniversary? That is just creepy.

Maybe our celebrations have something to do with that first kiss. Many couples commemorate the anniversary of their first date, but in our case that is sort of difficult to pin down. The first time we went out together was when I was dating a guy named Jon and Al showed up in his place.  So, if we picked that night (December 3, 1976) as the start to our relationship, we’d actually be celebrating a night that I had a date with another guy.  

Wait, that sounds bad.  

Here is what happened.

Jon happened to be a good friend of Al’s. We were all members of the UCONN marching band and tended to hang around together.  So, it was not particularly strange for the three of us to go out to see a movie, get pizza,  or go ice-skating.  However, on December 3, 1976, Jon and I had a date  to see the campus movie (Woody Allen’s “Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask”) and as far as I knew, Al wasn’t going to join us.  Sadly, Jon got news that his grandmother had passed away and that he needed to go home for the weekend.  He had tried to call me, but this was long before cell phones or even voice mail and he had been unable to reach me.  He asked Al to let me know what had happened.

At the appointed hour, I heard a knock and opened the door expecting to see Jon.  Instead, Al stood there.  His exact words were, “Jon’s grandmother died and he had to go home.  Do you want to go to the movie anyway?”

I didn’t have anything else to do that night, and like I said, we were all friends, so I said, “Uh. Sure.  I guess.”

Of course, we had a nice time, but we were just friends.  And I was dating Jon.

The next week, Jon dumped me.  Actually, that was fine with both of us.  He was a nice enough guy and we remained friends, but we were clearly not meant for anything more than that.

February 1977

Nine days later, on Sunday, December 12^th to be exact, I was in my dorm room working on some homework when there was another knock on my door.  To my surprise it was Al.  He had two things to tell me.  The first was that he bought a used electric piano, complete with headphones, in preparation for an introductory piano class he intended to take the next semester.  The other was that he had a paper due the next day on T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and since I mentioned that I loved T.S. Eliot, he hoped I might be able to shed some light on this massive and somewhat opaque poem.

Well, I was very impressed by the piano;  pianos were certainly not  common dorm room accessories.  And I agreed to help tame “The Wasteland” beast.  To say that I really understood that poem would be giving me far more credit than I deserved, but I did have a heavily annotated copy from a previous discussion class, so I could share a few ideas and identify a few themes.

We probably talked about “The Wasteland” for half an hour.  Otherwise we talked about music,  skating, constellations, mutual friends, marching band, concert band... usual things.   Three hours later, Al started to leave.  I followed him to the back door of the dorm, wishing he could stay a little longer.   But, he did have that paper to write and type.  (For you young’ns out there, this involved an actual pen and paper, followed by a couple of hours with a real manual typewriter).  But as he said his final goodbye, he gave me a quick hug and a shy kiss.  And then he was gone.

Yup.  That is how it all started and tonight, 34 years later, we toasted that modest start to the grand adventure of our lives together.

Tonight I am grateful for celebrations that commemorate all those important milestones and events that give our lives shape and character.

 

Bah Humbug! NOT!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

And well it should, at least at our house.  Last weekend, while the kids were home for Thanksgiving, we went out on our annual tree-cutting expedition to find this year’s "most perfect tree."  Thanksgiving weekend seems too early to me, but we really wanted to have the annual tree trimming party while Eric and Ellen were home which won’t happen again until just before Christmas.  So early or not, the tree is up, decorated, and is, as all Christmas trees are, magnificent.

We always cut our own tree at a local tree farm, and in the past, the process has been long and painstaking.  Typically, we have to weigh the merits of various species:  White Pine? (full and lush, but ornaments tend to slide off) , Blue Spruce? (lovely, but the sharp needles hurt), Douglas Fir? (overall nice, but can be sparsely branched).  Then, once that decision is made, we do a thorough search for the best specimen.  A tree must be tall and full, have no bare spots, have straight trunk, and be symmetric.  In some years, this search has taken quite some time.   This year, Eric walked up to the first tree he saw and said, “How about this one?”  No doubt, it was an excellent tree.  We looked at each other in disbelief.  There was no way we could take the first tree we saw.  So we looked at its next door neighbor.  It was equally satisfactory, as was the next one we looked at.  I suggested that we go look at the spruces, but since it was a very cold and windy day, Ellen said, “You know, I am fine with these.”  The wind picked up and we all agreed the third tree we saw would be perfect.  Al cut it down; the boys carried it to the checkout, and we were done.  Ten minutes, arrival to departure.   The next day, we decorated it with our somewhat odd and eclectic mix of ornaments.  And like I said, it is magnificent.

Not all of the holiday preparations have been so smooth.  Like everyone I know, I have been overly busy lately and I am starting to feel tired and run down.   Maybe that is why I have been having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit.   Or maybe I am missing the kids.  Whatever the reason, yesterday was the day to decorate the rest of the house and I was pretty crabby about it.  I usually love the process of unwrapping and setting out all the Christmas stuff, but to be honest, this year it just felt like a chore.  A rather big chore. 


But, our schedules are getting pretty full and there really wouldn't be another time.

And, unfortunately, Christmas isn’t going to wait until I am in the mood for it. 

So, out came the Christmas village.   Out came the silk greens, the wreaths, the candles, and the candy dishes.  At one point, I said to Al, “Maybe we should just have the tree this year.  Do we really need the rest of this stuff?”  He replied that either way was ok with him, although I could tell he didn’t mean it.   So, out came the holiday linens.  Out came the gumdrop tree.  Out came Mom’s Santa collection and her Christmas bells.  Out came the tabletop trees for the upstairs hall and the basement family room. Out it all came.  It took all day, well into the evening.

It wasn’t until the job was done and the lights were lit that I felt my crankiness start to dissipate. It is nice to have all the "stuff" around again in preparation for the holidays. Christmas is beginning to do its magic again, bringing light to the darkest season of the year and even brightening up my run-down, worn-out crabby mood.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It is even starting to feel that way. 

Today I am grateful for twinkling lights in the dark times of year.