The passing of Kodachrome

I can't tell you the last time I took a picture using color film, namely the Kodachrome film from Kodak. It's been too long and now Eastman Kodak has announced it'll stop making Kodachrome.

Like many people, I've gone digital. Every picture I take is made up of electronic ones and twos and bits and bytes.

The photos, and there are hundreds of them now, don't exist as something I can hold in my hand. They exist as files that I keep on the hard drive of my laptop or the back-up drive on my desk or, occasionally, on the teeny tiny digital card in my BlackBerry.

But though I abandoned Kodachrome long ago, I mourn its passing ... am partly to blame, in fact, for its passing.

I guess I'm at that age when something that was so iconic or important in my life no longer ceases to be, I get a little misty-eyed and nostalgic, especially when that something was an important part of my life in various parts of my life.

Such is the case with Kodachrome film.

I was a newspaper journalist/photojournalist for many years. Taking pictures was as much a part of my job as reporting and writing for the small newspapers where I worked.

When I wasn't shooting the black and white Tri-X film from Kodak for the newspaper I was shooting the Kodachrome color film or slides for myself.

It was the slide film that I shot in 1977 during a two-month cross-country car trip, capturing the images you might expect: from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone, from Mesa Verde to Las Vegas, from the Great Smokey Mountains to Gettysburg, from Salt Lake City to Seattle, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi, Ohio, Colorado and Snake rivers in between.

(Picture above at Arches National Park in Utah was taken with Kodachrome slide film.)

It was the Kodachrome I used to capture the births and childhoods of my children, Elizabeth and David.

Kodachrome captured the images of my first wedding.

Digital captured the images of my second and all the important family events and everything else since the late 1990s. Kodachrome truly represented a former life that I have moved on from.

In part I mourn the passing of Kodachrome because I miss what film forced us to do. It made us get prints and having the prints guilted us into getting the pictures into an album.

I tell myself that someday I will organize my digital photos, print the most important ones and get them into albums. But I lie to myself. I probably never will because, at this stage, the project would be far too vast.

Ironically, it's my 22-year-old son David who will uphold, at least for a time, the film tradition. He is on a cross-country trip of his own, using the same Minolta I had in 1977, and he's shooting of all things Kodak black and white film. Talk about retro.

Now, there's an album I can't wait to see.

Roots and wings: A Father's Day story

I'm here in New Hampshire. My daughter is in Connecticut. And my son, the recent college graduate, is in San Diego, or maybe Los Angeles, as he continues a cross-country journey by car.

You'd think I'd know exactly where he is at every mile of his trip. He has a cellphone that he carries with him all the time. I have a cellphone I carry with me all the time. Same with my daughter. And yet, we don't talk to each all other the time.

And I think that's a good thing.

As I approach Father's Day -- my 25th as a dad -- it's an interesting question for this Baby Boomer to ponder. When it comes to being in touch with your grown children, how much is too overbearing? How little makes them think I don't care?

I guess it comes down to this: I care enough not to bug them too much.

With my two kids and my wife Jane's four -- all six of them over 21 -- we have a fair amount of experience watching how children grow up and grow out of the house.

We have a magnet on our refrigerator that says: "Give your children two lasting things ... one is roots, the other, wings."

The hope is that we've grounded them enough so that we don't fret too much when they spread their wings and fly away.

It used to be while they were in college that we'd talk a few times a week. Now it's once a week or so.

They know they can get a hold of me when they need me. I know how I can get a hold of them when I need them.

It's a mutual trust between parents and children -- we trust in each other's love to know we're there for each other, even if we're not there.

It'll be the first Father's Day that I won't have the company of my son, David. It certainly won't be the last. As they get older and as circumstances will dictate, they won't be there in person to celebrate Father's Day. It's the same with birthdays and holidays. We'll be together for some, not for others.

The cellphones and Facebook and Twitter and email give us access to each other all the time. But the 24/7 means of being in touch in fact requires a delicate touch.

Roots ... and wings.

Make them grounded. Let them fly.

Black or gray -- having to choose

So my driver's license came up for renewal this month, and I faced the decision of having to face up to my growing gray, or hang on to as much of my youth as I possibly can.

I chose the latter.

Not that I'm ashamed of my growing mass of gray hair on my head and around my face.

I had the chance to embrace my inner Baby Boomer -- the wise, introspective one who is ready to embrace aging as just another step in the journey.

But I chose to embrace my outer Boomer instead -- the one who looks back at me in the mirror each morning and says, "No way in hell you're about to turn 56."

I had filled out my license renewal application and waited in an interminable line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Question: Why are motor vehicle departments everywhere so notorious for long lines and frequent poor service? Who, in this case, thought it was a good idea with a line snaking out the door to have two people on break, leaving one woman to process?

In the area of the renewal that asked for my hair color I tried to be as accurate as possible and wrote "black/gray."

As the clerk -- who was very patient, by the way, given the circumstances of the long line -- checked through my renewal she said, "Pick one."

"Pick one what?"

"A hair color ... you can't be both."

So I picked black, which is the predominant color ... pretty much, sort of.

Completing the rest of my renewal, she told me the story of the guy who put his hair color down as "bald."

She told him to pick a color. "But I'm bald," he implored. "So pick the color before you were bald," she told him.

Our exchange about black vs. gray is symptomatic of the cultural tug of war between how society sees Baby Boomers and how we see ourselves.

Society, it seems, wants us to shut-up already and move out of the way. Get old and make room, they say.

But the Baby Boomers are trying to redefine aging by defying it. We may look like we're aging, we say, but we won't act it. Which is why we'll continue to do some of the crazy ass things we've always done, or maybe even try some crazy ass things we've never done.

And if that means telling the registry clerk that we have black hair as long as there's a single strand of black hair left, then so be it.

I'll have plenty of time to be gray.

Ten lessons from a year of retirement

I'm certainly more at ease not working than when I was working. I see a wider horizon of opportunities now that I'm not working vs. when I was working. And I can nap, which was usually frowned upon at work.

That is some of what I've discovered in the year since I retired after 30 some odd years of newspaper work.

Here are 10 Lessons of Retirement that this Baby Boomer retiree learned after Year 1 of retirement:

1. Have a daily plan
For some people there is a certain serendipity to waking up in the morning with nothing to do. They find enjoyment in just letting the day happen around them. I'm not one of those people. I need a plan, have always needed a plan, and retirement didn't change that. I know when I wake up what my day will entail. Is there room in the schedule for an unscheduled lunch with a friend or an unscheduled round of golf or a trip to the beach? You bet. But I need organization, always have. Having things to do is much better than having nothing to do.

2. Stay active, part I
Get a gym membership and use it. Or walk or bike or take a yoga class. Garden. Golf ... but don't ride a cart if possible. Use your body. In a related note, become an organ donor when you die. Maybe you'll take better care of your liver, kidney, heart etc. if you know they could possibly outlive you.

3. Stay active, part II
Use your brain. Read books. Read newspapers. Read magazines. (The printed mass media could certainly use your allegiance.) Sculpt. Paint. Do Sudoku. Do crossword puzzles. Write if you are so inclined. Don't give dementia or Alzheimer's any kind of a head start on that brain of yours.

4. Promise yourself that you'll learn something new
As a kid growing up in Colorado, I imagined myself as a skier in the winter and a surfer in the summer. I accomplished the skier part early on, but never got to the surfing part, even after living in New England near the coast for the last billion years. But after retiring last summer I promised myself I'd learn to surf. And I did ... sort of. I'm no pro, but I can stand up on the board and this summer I'm going to work at getting better. The point is, learn to do something you wished you knew how to do. Restore a '57 Chevy, for example.

5. Travel
If you've got the time and the financial wherewithal get out of the house and go some place different. Even if it's just an occasional weekend jaunt to a nearby city or country inn. Shuffle it up, instead of driving or flying, take the train. Talk to the locals. Eat what the locals eat. Expand your view of your state, your country, your world.

6. Watch what you eat
Being home as much as I am, I'm tempted to eat big breakfasts, big lunches, big dinners. Big mistake. Moderation, moderation, moderation. Also, see No. 3.

7. Give yourself the daily gift of music
It's not enough to just sing in the shower. Listen at some point during the day to the music you love. Listen at some point to something that might be new to you -- jazz or show tunes or classical, for instance. Better yet, play an instrument. See No. 4 ... learn to play the piano or the guitar. Revel in your ability to create music. Our species' ability to make music is truly one of our greatest gifts.

8. Volunteer
Find a niche and donate some time. You've got the time to give. You've got the experience to give. I've dabbled in a couple of areas. Honestly, I haven't found my niche yet.


9. Be who you are comfortable being
Doing the research and writing that I do each day I'm amazed at how much encouragement I see for Baby Boomers to remake themselves. That's all well and good. The corporate executive who goes to cooking school and remakes himself as a chef is just fine. But don't remake yourself into something you're not. If you like how you're made already, be happy with that.


10. Be a role model
Show your kids, your grandkids that you've still got it. With experience comes wisdom. You've been there, you've done that, you've gotten the t-shirt 10 times over. Don't lecture. Mentor. Teach by doing, not by telling.