The other day I was recording for the Reszin Adam and what frequently comes up is her old mineograph machine that was left on the curb and likely crushed in an garbage truck and hauled to the landfill for “disposal.” The question always come up whether or not the broken down mineograph should have been saved for history purposes.

The mineograph printed most of the flyers and newsletters for the social justice causes in Albany from the mid 1960s through the 1990s. The mineograph of hers cranked them out one by one with its stinky blue ink from the basement of Reszin house on Chestnut Street for decades. By the time it was retired from service it was no longer usable as the belts and rubber throughout the machine worn and destroyed by the ozone in the air. Parts if they could have been obtained, wouldn’t have made much sense to replace them as computers and laser printers have long replaced such technology as superior.

And it’s not like the mineograph was anything special. It was cranked out by thousands from factories. You can probably find dozens if not hundreds of similar machines on Ebay, some certainly in much better working order. Because of industrial production they are all pretty much the same. Any meaning given to the machine was mostly emotional – it’s not like it would be studied by future generations. Even if it was a museum piece better working examples could be found. And they’re are no museum’s of the people’s history of Albany. People are mostly interested in elected officials like Mayor Erastus Corning, even though the people’s voice still matters on the direction of our country.

Some of the early documents of Save the Pine Bush and the work of Reszin Adam’s have been saved. Others inevitably went to the landfill or maybe the scrap markets for making new paper. Some history was lost but some saved. But it’s hard to say if anyone will ever open the archives or lost to time.

Myself, I don’t save a lot on paper. Most of it ends up in the recycling dumpster or burned up in the woods. I find it just accumulates and it’s a lot easier to save electronically using computers. I figure I some of my blog will be forever saved in places like archive.org. But realistically some of my experiences and thoughts will be lost with the passing of time. But I guess that’s fine, I’m not a public actor, I’m a private citizen. I don’t get that involved with public policy, I am no Reszin Adam’s whose advocacy lead to countless changes in the Albany area.

I am glad some of Reszin Adam’s papers made it to SUNY archives. I’ve spent over a year with John Wolcott papers but I’m not sure how much valuable I’ve found. But maybe it will get achieved. But for me personally I don’t have all that much worth saving and whatever tidbits to get vacuumed up into the Internet Archives it will be a reminder of the lives we once lead to.