For the most part its just lists of birds that he saw and where he saw them. I had no idea that he was interested in this sort of thing. He was an attorney and I never had any idea that he was interested in the natural world in any way. So it was kind of cool to come across this after he passed away. […]

A lot of these are locations that I of course was familiar with too, they were around our house growing up or places we went to on vacation. So they’re places that I knew, but I had known in a different way. I since have become interested in birds myself, just sort of independently. So I look at this and I think, “Oh man, I missed all these cool birds when I was four and didn’t care about them!” […]

So most of it is lists, not great literature or anything like that. […] This was probably 1968. We’ve got:
Saturday August 24th, “Numerous nighthawks over head in the early evening” Wednesday, August 28th, “Nighthawks again”
Friday, September 5th, New York Harbor, “Found Terns, Laughing gulls”
Sunday, September 8th, “Nighthawks”
Thursday, September 19th, “Nighthawks again”

When I came to one of these events before I brought a journal that my grandfather had kept. I had no idea that he was interested or that my father was interested, now I also have become interested. So this would probably go in the Museum of Inherited Pathologies!

Exhibited by Pete Olson

Transcript edited by Sarah Crawford