This contact sheet contains photographs from Cornell College in the winter of 1976, I think.  These photos illustrate the limits of my memory. 

One of the most difficult parts of this photo project is to remember when where and who of the photographs.  I cannot remember most of the names of the people depicted here.  There are quite a few whose names I never knew, but not more than half.  What is the name of the man talking with James Boyce and Emerson Goodwin?  James Phipps?  I’ll have to look it up in a yearbook to confirm.

My memory is like a file clerk.  I’ve tended to personify it/him to look like the librarian in the original Star Trek episode All Our Yesterdays, Ian Wolfe acting as Mr. Atoz.  I’ll ask my memory for a name.  "Who is this?"  Sometimes I have the answer immediately.  Sometimes I don’t and when I remember that I don’t have the answer I’ll ask again.  And I imagine Mr. Atoz scurrying off in the library of my neurons looking for the answer.  Sometimes I’ll get the answer a minute or two after the second request.  Sometimes I don’t get the answer then, either.  Will I remember to keep asking the question?  Two areas of my memory are battling it out:  Short term to remember to ask again and long term to remember the answer. 

Close.  Not James Phipps but DARRYL Phipps.  Please accept my apologies Mr. Phipps.

I don’t remember the names of either set of couples dining (3902 – 3906 and 3910 – 13).  I do now remember the names of the people dining at the far table in photos 3907 – 3909, friends who lived at Altoona and their friends.  Left to right Joannie (last name unknown LKU, Chuck's womanfriend of the time from Columbus Junction), Chuck Schuetze, Craig Murrin’s back, David Babcock, Diana Powell’s back, Dean Peg Ohrt,  Jeff Kreuger, and uh, now I’m spacing on his name.  From St. Louis.  Lived in the south-east corner on Altoona’s first floor.  Became a physician.  I’ve asked the memory clerk – maybe I’ll get -  and there we go.  Rich Frank.

And I don’t remember the names of the women sitting on Bowman’s south porch.  I wonder whatever happened to them.  I like the contrast in footwear – none, flip-flops, and platforms.

I recognize Linda Tookey in the mirror.  Linda was among Janet Paige’s close friends and she went to the same high school as Dave Babcock.  So far as I know Linda and Janet drifted apart, but I don’t know. 

The other difficult part to this photo project is adjusting the density and contrast of each scan.  Too light/too dark?  Too muddy/too sharp?  I worry that I’m making a consistent error, either because of the translation by the machinery between what I see on this monitor and what gets churned out by the scanning software or because I just consistently prefer darker photos with softer contrast than other people. 

One of the things driving me to scan and upload all these photos is the possibility that I’ll lose the ability, whether to see the photos, or remember any of the names, or handle the negatives.  If these photographs are to remain useful, or anything other than trash, they need to be accessible and identifiable.  Thus scanned and captioned.  I’m banking that the computers are going to get better at identifying photos and removing dust and dirt.

Have I forgotten anything?

The photographs referenced in this essay can be found in the section Photographs by Number in the gallery 00039.