P3D Responsibility lessons...

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Bruce!  I can hardly argue with the poetic form and 
idealistic content of your last message but... I'll do 
my best!  (btw, nice twist about responsibility to 
ones-self vs. the family!  You ma man are a great
writer!) 

Are you done writing your Stereoscopy articles yet? Because
it looks as if you are asking for more things to do.  If I 
send you the stereo slide collection, are you willing to do 
the search and post your findings?  And if that works, would 
you like to handle the few dozen more stereo slide collections
with identifiable family names?

It boils down to time and interest.  Andrea said I was lucky
I had time to read p3d.  Yes, I am lucky, but I don't have
time or interest to research ALL family stereo slides I 
collect.  Unless if there is a special connection.  I could
spend the rest of my life tracing people and families (all
unknown to me) via stereo (and why discriminate with stereo?)
images.  But that's not my interest, my job or my concern.

Now, if there was a special reason, if there were relatives,
people in Cleveland or people from or related to Greece, I
would consider doing it.  But just like that, research one
of my stereo collections for people who I do not know and
who have no connection to me, other than the fact that I
acquired some of their family slides (which BTW, I would like
to sell), no, I won't do it.  I'd rather apply my personal
responsibility reading stories to my children (as Ron Beck
does) at bed time....

Through my job (responsibility?) as editor of Stereoscopy,
our local club's newsletter) I have interviewed (and
continue to interview) club members and their stereoscopic
past.  This is a piece of history that is properly recorded
in paper.  In our October issue I interviewed Irene Ferman,
our oldest club member (as I elegantly put it, "I cannot 
tell you [how old she is] but this picture was taken in 
1978 when Irene celebrated her 70th birthday!)  Now we
are getting ready to interview a 96 year old gentleman who 
now lives in a local retirement house and just shot a roll 
of film through his camera.  

These are some of the subjects that interest me.  People I 
know.  People I can visit.  History of stereo photography in 
Cleveland.  And history of stereoscopic photography in Greece.  
I am interested in collecting first-hand impression of the
stereoscopic front in the 1950s and how it changed through
the years. People who walked into a store and bought a Realist.
That's what interests me at the present time.  I'll leave the 
family from Anna IL, to you Bruce.

George Themelis