Into The Woods

Leo Dodd presentation on Edmunds’ Woods in Brighton, New York
Leo Dodd presentation on Edmunds’ Woods in Brighton, New York

Cobbs Hill near the aptly titled Pinnacle Hill in Rochester, New York was named after Gideon Cobb, the quintessential pioneer and brick company proprietor in the Brighton neighborhood. Saturday was Gideon Cobb Day and about fifty people gathered in a lodge near Edmunds Woods for Leo Dodd’s presentation on the old-growth forest. The annual event was sponsored by Historic Brighton and a boxed lunch was included. The woods, an integral part of the old Edmunds farm, is now trapped between a suite of medical offices, parking lot, mosque, retention pond and expressway but it is a real gem with abundant wildlife.

The event started with a series of technical issues, first of which was helping my father find his glasses. They were in the side pocket of his car. My dad constructed the presentation in Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint) and he transferred it to his iPad. The projector had a hard time recognizing the iPad so a restart was in order and then the wireless mic which my dad had charged up the night before wouldn’t work even though the red on light was lit. That turned out to be the “stand-by” position so that too was a relatively easy fix.

The first slide had an audio file on and I tried holding the iPad up to the speaker which only caused a screeching feedback loop. I was in charge of swiping the iPad to advance the slides while my father talked and I had a quite a time trying to anticipate when to swipe so he wouldn’t have to say, “next slide please” between each graphic. I jumped the gun a few times and had to go back and I clearly caught him off guard a few times as he looked back up at the screen and saw that I had already advanced the slide he was talking to. But the presentation was flawless on my dad’s part and thoroughly enjoyable. Afterwards he led a group out into the woods.

The presentation is available here.

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