My wife’s great-great-aunt is the late Agnes Meyer Driscoll, a renowned cryptanalyst who played a central role in deciphering Japanese and German Navy codes in the 1920s and 30s.
Known as Madame X, she co-developed the “Communications Machine”, which became a standard enciphering device for the Navy for most of the 1920s, and was later considered the “first lady of naval cryptology”.
We were gifted some of her restricted-access Navy crypto assignments from the 1930s.
Little-by-little, over the last 10 years, my kids and I have built a small town in Minecraft.
It started unintentionally. My son, Tommy, came home from kindergarten one day excitedly talking about this new game he had heard about. Within a few days I was up to my elbows in redstone tutorials and modpacks.
We created a new world for our experiments, and called it simply, “Town”. We added some houses. He built a grocery store. I added a church.
A couple of years later his sister, Maggie, joined the fun and built a pet shop.
And from there, Town just kept growing. Over the years we’ve added a community pool, library, elementary school with working elevator, police and fire departments, hospital with helicopter and landing pad, clothing store, apartment building, gas station, arcade, renaissance faire, ice cream stand, working subway system, and more. Even a hydroelectric power plant!
The kids are getting older, and our construction crew doesn’t work as often these days. But we keep a running list of ideas to build and—usually when the weather gets cold—still come back together to take on a new project.
We just broke ground on an airport.
One more building, one more season, one more reason to sit next to each other and make something together.
Ten years ago I blogged about renowned archeologist, and family friend, Ed Rutsch.
I noted at the time that, “when he died, a Yahoo Group was setup for his many friends to share their Big Ed stories. Because everyone has a Big Ed story.”
Yahoo Groups shut down 5 years after I wrote that post, but before it did I grabbed an export of all of the Remembering Big Ed memorial group messages and pictures so these cherished memories wouldn’t be lost.
It took another five years but, with the help of AI, I have finally cleaned up all of those messages and have made them all available so Ed’s many friends and family can read these stories and memories once again.
“Big” Ed Rutsch was a close family friend, an accomplished archaeologist, a storyteller, and a giant in both stature and personality. He died twelve years ago today.
I was in my early twenties, and not mature enough then to fully appreciate the impact Big Ed had on the world, and on all of us around him. It’s so obvious to me now though…I can draw a line from Ed, alongside my parents, to much of what I value in life: friendship; humility (but also pride); craftsmanship; an appreciation for hard work and the people that do it.
When he died, a Yahoo Group was setup for his many friends to share their Big Ed stories. Because everyone has a Big Ed story.
A mutual friend, Bill Sandy, also posted his eulogy there—it captures all the things I loved about Ed. I’m sharing it here to archive it (and am slowly archiving the other group messages as well)—I’d hate for it to disappear someday.
Big Ed Rutsch was the ultimate Jersey Boy. When National Geographic needed a story on New Jersey, writer Jim Hartz started out with Ed: “Ed is a Native of New Jersey, an archaeologist dedicated to preserving the structures that embody the history of the industrial revolution in the state. He is a great bear of a man, 300 pounds and more, streetwise with brass knuckles opinions on everything”.
Ed then talked about an industrial stretch of Turnpike skyline and said “This is the place people love to hate, the part of New Jersey that turns so many people off. But this is where you find the real current and juice of the state. I know all the jokes about New Jersey. This place doesn’t have to apologize. New Jersey produces. It hustles. It’s tough.”.
Ed was the kind of Jersey boy that people loved to love. He was hooked into the current of where ever he was, but especially so on places like Chemical Beach, or the great IA tours. Ed was not everybody’s idea of an archaeologist. But, like the Garden State he loved, he did not have to apologize to anybody. He hustled, he was tough.
Over the last 20 years I got to work with Ed at sites throughout New York and New Jersey. He was my boss, landlord, friend & teacher. On one of our first digs together, I reintroduced him to my old friend Patty. Ed was loyal, honest, and straightforward. Ed and his team at HCI routinely planned to lose money on specific projects in need of detailed historic preservation studies. The projects Ed helped reads like a New Jersey travel brochure: Atsion, Whitesbog, Long Pond, Paterson, Cooper Mill, Metlar House, Delaware and Raritan Canal, Morris Canal and Liberty Park to name a few. He also explored less well known places, like Route 3, Route 21, Route 7, Fish House Road and the Dundee Canal.
The discovery of New York’s incredible African Cemetery was due to Ed’s detailed search plan. He never got credit, and he did not care. Although he stood to profit if the cemetery dig continued, he was an early and strong advocate for ending the dig and preserving the site. The Plymouth Rock for American Blacks is how Ed put it. A place as important as the Statue of Liberty is how the city’s expert described it. During the course of the project, Ed’s idea that archaeologists should be paid a living wage led to increased wages statewide.
Ed became famous in the early 1970s, when he was able to stop an interstate that would have been bad for what is now the Great Falls landmark. In the late 1990’s Ed was able to return to work again in his beloved Great Falls Historic District in Paterson. Ed claimed he had simply outlived his opponents.
Because of Ed, we have a better understanding of who we are and where we come from. This knowledge strengthens our efforts, not just in historic preservation. Ed has taught us to have the courage of our convictions. Ed has outlived his opponents bigtime.
Ed was always looking for a “clubhouse”, some comfortable place where all his friends and family could get together and celebrate. This will do nicely.
(I’m in the middle, in red.)