Today is my birthday so you’ll excuse me if I’m feeling a little nostalgic. Here are some photos of things from my childhood that I still own.
This may be the first photograph I took. It’s of my family on their summer beach holiday. I believe I took it because I’m the only one not in it.
Here’s a photo of me with the Kodak 8mm movie camera.
And here are some moving images that little movie camera captured.
You can see some of the View Master Project Apollo images here. They are wonderful dioramas.
You can hear transmissions from the Mercury flights at NASA’s Connect Sounds site.
As far as spiders, well, take a look around. But don’t kill them because they’re really our friends.
Do you still have things you owned as a child? What are they?
If you want to contribute to A Life’s Work, you can do so via the New York Foundation for the Arts. Donating is easy ($5 – to you name it!) and that money will be earmarked for this film, spent responsibly, and will be a tax deduction for you.
There are other ways you can support A Life’s Work that don’t involve money. Why not do it? It won’t hurt.
Haroon
David! Happy Birthday!
I was excited to see you sharing things from your childhood, and I ran down to my basement to get this big “box” I have since I was 10, full of meaningless but sentimental things (I have a popsicle stick in the box with a date on it that only I know the meaning to). Like your cameras, I kept all my old notebooks full of stories that I’ve written from when I was 6 all the way until college. Here’s the sad thing. I took out the notebooks to review, and looks like rodents got to it. It’s all chewed up. I’ve lost all these stories written in kiddy handwriting. Stupid mice. They ate everything that was paper.
I’m not old enough to “remember when we thought we would conquer space,” but I am still young enough to still think it. How can we not?! I refuse to believe their isn’t an itching curiosity burning in every one of us to explore the final frontier. And if there isn’t in everyone, then I don’t care, I’ll go at it alone! I signed up for this, and I swear I’ll go if selected. http://www.mars-one.com/en/mars-one-news/press-releases/11-news/437-78000-sign-up-for-one-way-mission-to-mars
I even wrote a story about a guy who went on a solo mission, one way to mars. Did I ever share it with you? It’s just full of him being alone and lonely, offering meditations on his life, regretting that he was so eager to leave earth. Probably exactly what would happen once anyone experienced the actual empty, boringness of space.
David Licata
Thanks, Haroon, and thanks for the thoughtful and heartfelt comment.
Drag about the notebooks. Curiously, I never hung on to that stuff. I do have a journal I kept through some of college, and there’s one notebook I wrote in for a poetry class (taught by Audre Lorde) that I wished I had kept. I had it stored in my parents attic, and when it was time to clear the house out, I let it go. Oh well.
I did see that news article about the sign up for Mars. I think it’s awesome people want to do it, but I don’t think I’d do it. Not now, anyway, maybe when I was younger. No, you never did share that story with me, but it sounds great.
I’m with you re: exploring, but I think I was focused on the word “conquer.” Like the way we think we can “conquer” nature, but really nature always wins. When this planet become uninhabitable for humans, nature will continue to shape it. Until the sun explodes.
Hope you’re doing well, friend.
D.