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We’re a Kodak family.  That’s not such a strange thing being where I am from.  By 1982 more than 60,000 people in Rochester worked for the ‘yellow box.’  At it’s height Kodak reigned supreme as the number one film supplier world wide.  In 1946 my parents met at a KPAA basketball game; dad was a star player, my uncle Jeff introduced them to each other.  Dad went on to spend his entire adult career working there, retiring in 1986 after 42 years of service.  Most of my family either worked there, or had at some point spent time with them.  Needless to say we took pictures...lots and lots and lots of pictures.  My mother was never without camera in hand.  It was a relatively normal experience to have more damned pictures of us all looking less than enthused to be having our pictures taken.  By the time I came along in the late ‘60’s the norm was color slides in our house.  The photographic evidence of my baby years is daunting as is the entire first half of the 1970’s - twenty six carousel trays, some double trays holding up to 140 slides.  Luckily the slides were kept in what was probably as close to archival storage as possible... our front hall closet rarely deviated from 50 degrees year round.  The stacks and stacks of trays lived there for as long as I can remember, only coming down for periodic shows... you know, those 70’s style, “Let’s invite our friends over to see the slides from Hawaii!” shows...Ummm, yeah.  Fun.  If I thought the slideshows were boring,  I was in for a hell of a great time scanning them 30 years later.

Birthday week is now officially over.  I’m declaring that for myself.  It’s been fun and there have been many nice, and some not-so-nice surprises for me this year.  One thing that I absolutely need is a detox period of sorts... not only from all the beer I’ve been consuming lately but also the roller coaster of highs and lows that have made my day-to-days a maudlin mess of manias.  There are petty situations with petty people that I have allowed to consume too much of my time.  And there are real tragedies of my own making I have allowed to unravel all over close friends that I haven’t paid enough attention to.

You lose yourself and your perspective at times.

An unexpected thing happened in the middle of all this self absorbed flagellation.  I had a conversation with a casual acquaintance that changed a fundamental belief I have been holding on to for many years now: kids?

The last time we were at my father's house in Rochester Dave said to me, "I think it's time to get a picture of the two  of us for the stairs"  (All my siblings and their families are represented on the wall running up the stairs in the main hallway of the house)  But there are so few pictures of the two of us together.  I'm not sure this is the one, but it made me laugh anyway.  This was taken at More Than Just Ice Cream during one of the 'STORMS OF THE CENTURY' last Spring.  Photo credit goes to Jim Scott.  Thanks Jimmy.

Some of you may remember us mentioning our trip to England a month ago.  We were traveling to celebrate Dave's great aunt Kathleen's 100th birthday.  Sadly, Kathleen passed away two weeks ago... but she did something many of us will never do... see 100.  Dave and his father are in Weybridge right now.  The funeral is tomorrow.  It's a sad thing for the family to lose someone who has always been an amazing pillar of strength, wisdom, grace and a very subtle but razor-sharp wit.  It's also sad that this will probably be the last trip Dave's father ever makes back to England, as he too is getting well on in years.  I am sorry to not be at the funeral, but I'm glad I shared her 100th with her when we did.  It's a simple reminder that once again, enjoy those things you love because we're not all going to live to see a century behind us.  She did.  If only we could all collect the amazing qualities Kathleen Horwood did in her lifetime.  We will miss you.