Here’s a week in the life for July 2025. Some were referred to before the fact here. The last time was not.
Friday, July 4: Lavada Nahon, culinary historian and interpreter of African American history with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, spoke at the Underground Railroad Education Center, 194 Livingston Avenue in Albany. “She has a wealth of experience interpreting the lives of free and enslaved African Americans across the mid-Atlantic region, with an emphasis on the work of enslaved cooks in the homes of the elite class.”
She spoke powerfully about New York State’s Investment in the Institution of Enslavement and Its Legacy Today. Northerners seem to buy the myth that slavery was only a Southern thing, but enslavement existed in New York State until 1827. Frederick Douglass’s famous What To The Slave Is the Fourth of July in 1852 was only a quarter century later.
(Sidebar: I need to write about one of my ancestors who may have been enslaved in New York before 1810, just north of New York City, per the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI), a “searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers in the states of New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.)
Also, my church had raised $10,000 for the planned UREC Interpretive Center. The proposed Center has taken a hit with money allocated by the IMLS suddenly terminated.
Songs of Freedom
Sunday, July 6: My family had never been to Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville, about 45 minutes north of Albany. As a part of the buildup to the Albany Symphony concert that evening, the UREC singers performed Songs of Freedom at the Pavilion. I didn’t mention that I was one of the singers; my wife was also recruited. Some of us had rehearsed a week before.
Some songs were from George Washington Clark’s The Liberty Minstrel, a “collection of songs and poetry written in the mid-19th century addressing the themes of slavery and the yearning for freedom.” It seemed to have been well received.
But it was really hot and muggy, and my family left before the ASO performance.
Frederick Douglass
Tuesday, July 8: Jack Hanrahan discussed his history/travel book, Traveling Freedom’s Road: Frederick Douglass in Maryland at the 161 Washington Avenue branch of the Albany Public Library. He was very informative and engaging.
Jack also described his 2022 book, Traveling Freedom’s Road:“In 2018, [he] and his wife Lisa took a lengthy car trip to the South. They visited big cities and small towns where civil rights history was made decades ago. The trip changed them.”
He’s now working on books about Frederick Douglass in New England, and in New York in the next two years.
Money for college
Wednesday July 9th: My wife and daughter, with my input, have been working on a letter to send to our daughter’s college. The college has offered us far less for this upcoming semester than what they had given us in previous years.
They believe that we are lot more well off. That’s in part because I had taken out several thousand dollars from my retirement 401K to help finance my daughter’s semester abroad to the University of Cape Town, South Africa. This shows up as income on an IRS statement, but in fact I am merely taking money from my extant resource.
The appeals process trying to convey this messsage mechanically involved making a bunch of PDFs and then trying to upload it to the college. It didn’t “take” on Monday, so this was a redo.
Unfortunately, the computers of my wife and daughter are lacking upload capabilities. So they had to purloin my computer for several hours over the two days. My own machine also has upload limitations – I can’t upload Windows 11, which I need to do before October – but I had enough capacity so they could eventually get those documents to the college.
We hope that our appeal is successful, but we do have a Hail Mary Plan B.
Weird random thing
In the past week, two strangers, separately, walked up to me and said how much they like my sunglasses. They fit over my regular glasses. I have had prescription sunglasses, but they’ve never worked for me, even the ones that change. for a few minutes, they are too dark when I walk indoors and not dark enough when I go outdoors.
These sunglasses I bought for three bucks at Lodge’s, a downtown department store founded around the end of the Civil War. I should see if they have more.
The day before the daughter took the plane ride home, I asked her, on WhatsApp, if she had her ticket and passport. She wrote back, “I hope so.” Of course, she did, but it wasn’t the answer I had been seeking. She arrived at the airport in Cape Town about four hours before her scheduled flight on June 17, as recommended, which was beneficial because loading began over an hour before takeoff.
Among the most terrible things I had to do regarding my daughter was telling her about Christy Harris D’Ambrosio, who died on Tuesday, April 8. Christy was the youth director at our church when my daughter was active growing up in the church. She directed several plays that my daughter participated in, including The Prince of Egypt, Once on This Island, The Lion King, an iteration of Assassins called Shooters, Bethlehemian Rhapsody, a performance using Beatles music, and even a piece that required the kids to write their own content. Christy was also a long-time member of our choir.
Last we 
Thanks to my daughter, I’ve learned a new word, apostille, which I’ll describe in due course. She decided to study abroad in the second semester of this college year. There’s a database she consulted to discern where to go based on her interests in art, black studies, environmental studies, and social justice.