what belongs

 I recently was given a collection of cassettes and VHS tapes that had belonged to my wife's Uncle George. You may remember me writing about his 35MM slides and making a slide show with them. That turned out to be a hit with some other family members and as a result this recent gifting of material. I am excited to browse through it and extract the gems that just have to be in there. I already had a cassette player, so I am able to play those. I didn't have a VHS player, however. A trip to the Goodwill store solved that problem for eight dollars! Hooray, I brought it home and it works just fine. Then I discovered there are a few 8MM video tapes as well. I have no way to play those. Some research on the internet and I'm informed. This format is no longer produced, there is no "adapter" kit to play them either. The options are buying a used 8MM camcorder, buy an 8MM player, or send them out to be converted to digital. The cost of conversion is between fifteen and twenty dollars apiece. Haven't decided what to do there. There is also two reels of 8MM film, on spools! Yes, real old fashioned film. Needless to say, I have no method of playing those either.

 I did start to sort through a very small portion of them. When I did the slides the only help I had was what was written on a very few of them, and my wife's memory. It struck me then how much was lost to time, names and places. All were important, at least for a moment, to Uncle George, as he took those pictures. Often, I was more interested in what was in the background that what the focus of the picture was. Old cars, buildings, and that sort of thing catching my attention. All are clues to time and place. But this new media I received is different. The audio tapes are interesting but so far, I haven't discovered anything much. I have played a few and they were music recordings off the radio, Glenn Miller must have been a favorite of Uncle George. I can picture him sitting there listening to the radio, finger poised over the record button, waiting for the music to come on. We all did that back in the day. I'm hoping to find recordings more interesting than those. 

 I have also started to play a few VHS tapes. Already I have seen family members that I recognize from the slides, this time their names are given as Uncle George narrates the recording. It is rather a surreal feeling as I knew Uncle George. To hear his voice again, this time telling me the names, and in a few cases their relationship to him years after his passing, well, as I said, surreal. I have many hours of recordings to filter through and this project is going to be ongoing for perhaps years to come. You can, after all, only listen and watch this stuff for so long at any one time. Still, each inch of tape needs to be reviewed, no pun intended. I wouldn't want to dispose of anything valuable. 

 It's an amazing thing really, how many methods of recording the past there have been in such a relatively short period of time. I remember those Super 8 home movies that were all the rage. They became the brunt of jokes as you bored your friends and neighbors with them. Reel to reel tape players, cassette tapes, then Cd's and now SD cards, flash drives and the cloud! We have advanced to the point where we are saving things in the "cloud" a place we don't know where it is, what it is, but we pay to place things there. It's all digital media these days. We still enjoy printing our pictures, I don't think that will ever change. It becomes obvious really quickly when you come into possession of this stuff. Having the technology to play it back can be a challenge. Prints don't have that issue.

 Finally, I have a bit of a dilemma. I haven't decided what I should do with all the media that doesn't interest me. I mean all the videos and audio recordings that are simply music, radio talk shows and movies. Apparently, Uncle George recorded all of those as well, judging by the few I have tried already. There is a part of me saying, you can't just throw them out, they belonged to Uncle George. It's the same feeling you get when discovering something your child made when they were very young, or something your grandchild gave you. You can't just throw that stuff out. Still, all the while you know it doesn't hold any real value at all. There is no sentimental attachment to any of that except, well, it belonged. Doesn't seem right to get rid of something that belonged to someone else and now belongs to you. Seems like you should keep that. It would be different if that person were here to tell you otherwise.

 I know it's silly really. Silly or not, I do have lots of things that belonged. I have items from Aunts and Uncles, brothers, my sister, friends and family. Just little things of no monetary value, just sentimental. I knew who those folks were and still are. You don't change after you die, you will remain as you were in my mind. All these little objects are connections to the past. The question is, what belongs in the future? What is carried from the past, creates the future. What belongs? What will you throw out, discard as of no value? I think it is important to save the reminders. That's what I keep telling myself.