I asked the grad students to maintain a daily blog and I've not been doing that myself. Here's a second attempt. Yesterday what began as a basic adjustment of a shelf in the mudroom turned into a major cleaning and organizing. I cleaned out a large box of accumulating ephemera, and culled a large pile of negatives and contact sheets. I might regret, at some point, tossing some negative sheets but if I haven't thought of them in decades, I most likely will not miss them.

I have a small stack of photographs that need filing. On top is a photograph of Gregg's dog Arlo who lived with us in Boston. Just below that was this postcard from my dad when he was traveling for a conference. I don't quite know why he would have been in Paris and maybe, later, Rome but I have this card that reminds me of his kindness, and gentleness with me as a child. It led me to recall one image I have in my memory archive that connects to a few others. One snapshot connected to another that form defining moments. As I see the story, I am sitting on the stone or brick wall that lined the drive way to our house in Pittsburgh. The wall became progressively higher off the ground as the driveway stretched from the road to the basement level of the house. If there was a garage, I can't see it. I fell, or maybe jumped to the ground and somehow scraped my thigh. In the image I recall best, I'm sitting on a chair on the dining area of the house just off the kitchen, and my dad is putting first aid cream on and bandaging me up. I think my mother was mad at me. Or at least, that's how the memory tells it.