Now I'm psyched

We just bought an Epson all-in-one scanner, copier, printer. Now I can upload photos and documents to this blog! My first success in this department is the picture in my sidebar. That's not an author photo but a photo of my dad, spring of 1961, somewhere in NYC. He was 33 (younger than I am now) and working as Executive Director for the Greater New York Council for a Sane Nuclear Policy. He and my mom had been married ten years and were proud parents to two daughters, my sisters Francine and Jessica, then 3 and 1 years old, respectively.

Now that I've scanned and uploaded one photo successfully, I'll post a few here, in blog proper, as a further experiment.

Here's a photo with Dad and Fran and Jess, Fourth of July weekend, 1961, the girls now just a little over 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 years old:

Next are photos of Dad, early 1940s, probably age 15 or 16, with his parents.

This one is of him and his father, Ben Greenberg, after whom I'm named . . .

This one is of Dad with his mother, Gertrude Swig Greenberg:

I never knew either of my paternal grandparents. They both died before I was born. Reading "Lunch" should help you understand why I see something very pained in my dad's expression, as he poses with his father. In another post, I will write the curious story of the photo of Dad with Grandma Gert.

Comments

[Richard Silverstein]

The Epsons are supposed to be great with photos. I'm thinking of buying an Epson scanner or photo printer. I take photos the old fashioned way & have them turned digital on CDs which I copy to my pc. From there I upload them to my weblog or photo blog. Images are an important visual element in blogs & make them so much more interesting than blogs that are solely text. I wish TP's image upload interface was a little more sophisticated (i.e. allowing captions) so that I didn't have to do this manually.

BTW, I'm planning to write a post about the 1949 Peekskill riots (my materal grandparents family are from Peekskill & there's a lot of family history there, though few are left there now). Do you know of any good online sources of info & research I could use? I have a few, but could always use more.

[Ben G.]

Well, so far I am very happy with this Epson Stylus CX5400, though I don't really have anything to compare it to. One thing I like, not reflected in the uploads to this blog, is that when I scan small 4x6 photos at high resolution (1200x1200 dpi), the enlarged image on my screen shows details I could not see in the original.

For my own photographs I've switched over to taking them in the digital format. I use a now older model Nikon Coolpix 990. I've been pretty satisfied with the prints I get through ofoto. I haven't yet tested the photo printing on my Epson. I suspect I'll still print with ofoto when I want higher quality results for framing or the like.

As far as the Peekskill riots go, I know about them, of course, but I haven't done much research abou them. My parents weren't at that concert—though, as for many on the left, Paul Robeson was one of my father's great heros. I do remember hearing a feature about Robeson and Peekskill on NPR a year or two ago. If you search on Paul Robeson in either Morning Edition or All Things Considered, you should be able to find the segment and stream the audio.

Also you might try googling Peekskill and/or Robeson and Bill Mandel (see his website to get a load of who he is). He has written a first hand account of the Robeson concernt and subsequent riot in his book and posts excerpts of his book, when relevant, on a number of left-wing list-serves.

And click on the American 1950s link in my sidebar. There's a lot of interesting stuff collected on that site, including Howard Fast's account of the Peekskill riot.

My recollection is that my parents were visiting my mother's parents at their summer home, in the Mohegan colony, very near Peekskill, and they saw some of the people who had fled the violence and heard about it first hand. I may, however, be conflating my parents with my grandparents or their friends . . .

[James]

Great photos, Ben. It is interesting how photos add another dimension to our blogging. I bought a Canon scanner earlier this year out of necessity. Before then, I would have to make appointments with friends so I could use their scanners. It gets to be quite fun because you find so much great stuff to scan. Happy scanning!

[Wendy Newton]

Looking on Google for reminiscences of the Peekskill riots; now all I want to do is read more about your father. Are you going to publish this material in a book (with paper pages?!) My father was a news commentator in New York, blacklisted during the horror years, who never regained his career. I wish I had explored his life as you are your Dad's. I'm inspired to find the carton of papers I know are in our basement storeroom and start reading. Even one a night..

Thanks,
Wendy