Hole in the Clouds

Stone ages

Sep 19, 2009

The rocks are 400 million years old, give or take.

The photo is five years old.

The occasion was the birthday gathering on Peaks Island in Maine in honor of Bob Horowitz--my father, and the grandfather of these fellows--who was then 80 years old.

There's one obvious constant through all these years: some of us hominids are hard-wired to build forts and weapons and stuff out of rocks or whatever is close to hand.

Not as obvious, perhaps, but just as constant: some of us are hard-wired to knock down other people's forts and stuff. Hank recalls that he had to rebuild this whole structure all by himself. Had to.

My father will be 85 this next week. He's well beyond the stone age; most days, he aims for the Big Band era.

Left to right: Brothers Ted, Hank, Allen, and Joe Stein, with cousin Nick Horowitz.

Two Chucks and a Bob

Jul 17, 2012

The boy at left, with his eyes closed, is my cousin, Charles Horowitz; the boy at right, with the big grin, is my brother, Charles Horowitz, who will turn 56 in a couple of weeks. In the middle is my father, Bob Horowitz; his brother Lee, the father of my cousin Charles, must have been behind the camera.

The four Horowitzes were camping and fishing that weekend in approximately 1966 at Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. The two Charleses were both named after their grandfather, whom they never knew; he died shortly before they were born. Both boys were called Charley when they were young but go by Chuck as adults.

Cousin Chuck is a psychologist in San Francisco. Brother Chuck is a physicist in Indiana. I've not heard that either of them is much interested in fishing these days.