I brought home some stuff from my dad’s house yesterday. He is purging the place of nearly sixty years of accumulated stuff. Mom was packrat. A lot of it should have been trashed years ago. Who needs EVERY cancelled check you have from the bank? When I saw “every” I mean every one since the beginning of time. Or copies of utilities bills from the 1990s?
One of the things I brought home was a box of 8mm home movies from when I was a kid. I haven’t looked at all of the labels (of course Mom labeled them, see above) but it looks like they stop around 1969 or so. I don’t know how brittle or faded they are. I don’t have a projector to view them. I may take a few to have copied onto disk at some point. I still have about 20 of my own Hi8 tapes to get done. I’m not sure what it will cost for sixty year old film.
I could just look at it through a magnifying glass, 18 frames per second wouldn’t be too boring...*
Once the world discovers my genius and true greatness there will likely be a clamoring for information on my beginnings and childhood. The Smithsonian will certainly want to lovingly restore these tapes to their black and white (or maybe even color!) original glory. I have no doubt this archival footage will be the centerpiece of a new wing built in my honor.
These films won’t win an Oscar though. Directed and filmed by my Dad, starring my brother, mother, and I, the all-white cast and crew will not meet the diversity standards of the Academy. After all, why choose the Best Picture when you can honor the most diverse one.
* of course it would
My wife keeps every receipt.
ReplyDeleteWhen we got married and she met my best man, she realized he had repaired her washing machine years earlier.
She pulled out the receipt to prove it.
My garage door spring broke yesterday. The OTHER spring.
The first one broke 20 years ago. She pulled out the receipt, and there was the part number.
I, too, am dealing with the accumulations of a pack rat. We inherited and moved into my MIL's home, and talk about 4 bedrooms filled with boxes of "junk" let alone the office that has boxes of said old receipts, checks, etc. the FIL was a traveling missionary in the state, so tons of paperwork for mileage, and daily travel info. Daunting to go through to decide what is important for any reason....and the Wife won't let me do it, as she feels I may throw away something that her or her siblings may want to keep. Frustrating as hell!
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