If the world can only handle 8 billion people, as most experts believe, what would happen if we had 10 billion?

This question started circulating through the creative spaces of Richard Cutler’s brain during his long career as facilities director at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.

Sounds like a great book, he thought. Too bad he didn’t have time to write it.

Running 113 buildings with scores of people working for him and over $200 million in collective renovations being made, he was a busy guy.

“It was one of those jobs, you either liked it or you don’t. I think when I was there everyone liked it. I had a great time,” Cutler said. “When a hurricane or a big storm would come up the coast, I’d be camped out down at the lab — I still check in when there’s a big storm. I can’t resist.”

When he retired three years ago, he knew that he wanted to write — especially his story about a future where humanity tries to solve a problem.

“In that job I was the only engineer, so I wrote all the technical stuff if we were looking for a grant request and so forth. I was always writing, but not for fun,” he said.

It took two years of writing in short bursts of inspiration, but he saw his vision through with his first book Course Correction, self-published and available on Amazon.

He will be at the Rochester Council on Aging at 2:30 pm on Thursday, October 12 with copies of his book to sell and sign.

He brings his scientific background and a touch of whimsy to the novel, which imagines a future in 2085 where humanity needs a new home off of Earth.

Without giving too much of the plot away, the people of Earth are affected (badly) by the “Death Flu,” leading the characters on a quest into space for answers.

“Here’s the thing about science fiction — you watch these TV shows and movies and everyone’s just shooting lasers. It’s just like the Old West,” he said. “But there’s a lot more to it than that. At the lab, we were always talking about climate change, Zika virus, and I wondered, in this day and age — and in the future — something really nasty could spread.”

The book runs to 235 pages, and Cutler says he’s sold copies as far away as New Zealand since its release this summer.

Cutler lives in Rochester with his wife Ginny, and he’s enjoying his town role on the Zoning Board of Appeals — a second stint on that board. He also has served as a selectman.

Why town government?

“Well, somebody’s got to do it, you know? I’m reasonably good at it, and I like to help out.” he said.

Cutler is also known for his classic Model T collection, which takes up a good chunk of his side yard on a corner lot on the back roads of Rochester.

He was the first to get hooked on the classic cars, and his wife wasn’t far behind. He built one Model T from original parts, working on it an hour every night over eight years until it was up and running.

He spent 10 days with the Model T Club of New England filming a movie with Ben Affleck, “Live By Night,” a period gangster piece that came out in the fall of 2016. This past summer, he put 3,000 miles on his 1914 Model T, driving with his wife all across America.

“When my wife saw that one, she said, ‘We’re not leaving here without that car.’ As she says, ’They’re like potato chips, you can’t only have one.’ But it’s a great opportunity to get out and see the country, places that people normally don’t go.”

And, as he says, “We like to show off,” as heads turn every time he takes any of the cars out on the roads of Rochester.

At 71, he says he’s “slowed down a little,” but, like his classic cars, there’s still plenty left in the gas tank.

By Jonathan Comey

One can marvel at the simplicity of the humble act of planting a seed. You cover it with soil, water it, give it sun, and a few months later you have delicious juicy tomatoes. Same, really, when you buy baby tomato plants, sticking with the tomato example, and simply place them in the ground and watch them grow. Leave the complicated stuff to the plant and stand back and watch it unfold.

Perhaps you think the heirloom tomatoes your cousin gave you are the most delicious variety you’ve ever eaten, and perhaps you’d like to eat it again next year but you’re not sure if you’ll ever find that variety again. Those end-of-the-season tomatoes that have already peaked contain enough seeds inside to have a go at trying to harvest them, keep them, and next year plant them yourself with your very own saved seeds and, voilà! You’re making BLTs for another year with the same tasty tomato.

It’s a shame it’s not as simple as that.

Master Gardener Gretel Anspach of the Massachusetts Master Gardener Association spoke about seed saving to a group gathered at the Taber Library on October 5, and likely put a damper on some of their big plans for saving seeds from this year’s harvest for next year once Anspach spilled the beans on the actual complexity of the pursuit.

Did you know that if you plant a variety of different tomato plants in your garden they would almost certainly cross-pollinate with each other? Which means that amongst tomato varieties X, Y, and Z, if you preferred X and planned to harvest its seeds and save them for next year, you would likely wind up with a hybrid of X and Y, or X and Z – meaning your tender juicy tomato could look like your favorite X variety, but actually taste like Y.

Oh yeah. Because genetics.

Anspach started at the beginning. We usually buy seeds because we can grow something new every year. No need to worry about the genetics stuff, and we don’t have to think much about saving the seeds after because we can just buy them again next year. But those who save their seeds do so because heirloom varieties (heirloom meaning a cultivar that originated at least 50 years ago, maybe 100, or it’s just been passed down generations) are interesting, you know they worked out in the past, some of those heirlooms are no longer available, and of course, it’s free!

But in order to collect a viable seed, you first need a plant that can produce fertile seeds that can be pollinated, and the seeds must be harvested from ripe fruit. Then to get the seeds that will breed true, the plants must be open pollinated (not hybrids, not clones) with sufficient enough separation from other varieties amongst a large population of its own kind. For example, corn needs at least 200 of its own variety – and one mile of separation from another variety — to ensure it will breed true!

There is a seed saving movement of sorts in today’s world, with heirloom seeds being prized above hybrids, along with vast conspiracies that governments and mega agricultural corporations will control the food supply, limiting the varieties of seeds and altering life on Earth as we know it, says Anspach. “And none of that is necessarily true,” she said.

True, there are far fewer varieties of some vegetables; for example, the Seed Savers Exchange lists 2,299 types of beans in its seed catalog, while the seed supplier Johnny’s Selected Seeds only lists 36. For tomatoes, the Seed Savers Exchange lists 9,153 varieties; Johnny’s lists 134.

“People save seeds because it’s interesting,” said Anspach. “It’s just cool knowing that that seed has been in the family for thirty years.”

The trend in America is to breed produce so it looks good, and we buy it usually because of how it looks. But as fruits and veggies are bred to look perfect, less emphasis is put on how it actually tastes. An heirloom might not be the most attractive of the variety, but it likely possesses a taste so good that for decades someone has been keeping that strain true.

Anspach recommended contacting the Mass Horticultural Society, or even Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston for free advice and information on any questions about seed saving. Trust just about any Internet source that ends in ‘.edu’, says Anspach.

“And go forth, and plant.”

By Jean Perry