Yes, I know I haven’t written for awhile.
My friend Joe is getting a lot of press for having turned his podcast series, Documents that changed the world, into a book, with a slightly different title, Documents That Changed the Way We Live.
So here’s one that changed me.
Found in an old filing cabinet at my department, my name on a list of students to be admitted to the archives program, in 1989. Using the Debby with a “Y” form I liked back then. I was a little miffed that I’m #10 on the list, but we’re in rough alphabetical order at least up to about #14, so I don’t think order on the list has any qualitative value. I spent the next almost two years in classes with the people on the list, or most of them anyhow. It’d be interesting to see how many are still archivists – or were ever archivists. I’m sure the Google & LinkedIn can tell me – and the SAA membership directory. Cynthia Knight had an endowed position at the WI Historical Society for awhile. I myself don’t literally work in archives anymore, but I teach archival topics.
I don’t remember all the people on this list; I think some of them might not have done the program, after being offered admission. There were 7 of us who completed the full three course series.
Here’s another:
I started reading Gourmet magazine when I was about 9. My mother subscribed. In the winter, I’d get up before everyone else. My parents had one of those 1960s pole lamps with a little table attached and it was in front of a heat vent. I’d go sit under the table, by the heat, with my mother’s Gourmets and read until my dad came down. It was my first experience of food writing that’s not only about food.
I still remember an essay about drying tangerine sections on the radiator, so the skin got crisp and insides still juicy. It’s by M.F.K. Fisher, Borderland, and quite voluptuous, in a way my 9-year-old self didn’t really understand but I think was drawn to.