As we approach America’s 250th birthday, we’ll have a time of celebration and mixed feelings of nostalgia. Cities and small towns across the vast nation will bury time capsules that capture a small moment in time to be opened in the future. Typically those are capped off and re-opened 50 years later. Some of the bicentennial time capsules will be re-opened and we’ll jump in a time machine back to 1976.
Recently, my Aunt reached out to me with an idea and a project that became a time machine of sorts for me. She had just done some renovations and was cleaning out the bedroom that her boys had grown up in. While cleaning things up, she found a little over three dozen VHS tapes. Some were labeled so it was clear what was contained, others were giant citadels of mystery. Baseball games, wrestling matches, high school graduations, weddings, births, and anything else you can imagine were captured on these tapes with some of the content not having been seen in years.
Memories were captured on these tapes and no one had the equipment to view the contents anymore. Most people haven’t had a VCR in the home in nearly 20 years since DVDs proliferated the media landscape. When she presented me with the idea, I couldn’t wait to take a trip down memory lane and help unlock these memories so they could be enjoyed and relived one more time by a new generation.
Some of the events contained occurred over 40 years ago. I overheard a conversation being had at Christmas between I believe my Uncle and my Aunt’s deceased father. The conversation was about bits and bytes and how there are eight bits in a byte. My Aunt’s father Frank noted back to my Uncle that he had never heard of such a thing.
Storage of data would have been a very foreign concept to a person who worked with their hands and at the time in the 1980s he wouldn’t have owned a computer and possibly had never used one.
I watched a graduation party where people young and old danced without a care in the world for who saw them and how well they danced. People enjoyed each other’s company in a genuine way that with every passing day feels more and more foreign.
Fashion was horrifying, but simple. People revered time honored traditions. At the actual graduations, the adults all had shirts and ties on out of a show of respect to the graduates and reverence for the occasion.
Prom night saw family pictures being taken where grandparents dressed up for this big moment in their grandson’s life that was their first adult experience. Things had meaning, events and people were respected. Coaches at sporting events didn’t berate children and fans didn’t talk down about a youngster’s performance. The event took place and was captured for posterity, not so you could run home and brag about it on social media. People didn’t live with that fear then, it made me yearn for those days again.
As I transferred these VHS tapes to my laptop and then to YouTube, each one was like a time capsule that I had the privilege of opening. Some contained memories of events I wasn’t aware of. Some of them contained video of a version of me from more than three decades ago. Most of the people have departed the world, some of them I was able to hear their voice for the first time in decades.
Some of them were Steelers games, Pirates games, NASCAR races, or just the local news. There were soap operas, TV shows, made for TV movies, cartoons, and a cadre of other recordings mixed in with the family memories.
As you celebrate the 4th of July and America’s 250th Birthday, maybe you’ll bury an actual time capsule. Maybe you’ll just watch some fireworks and enjoy time with family and friends. Regardless, you’re going to make memories. Hold on to them, cherish them and don’t let those good times fade away or be overwhelmed by the news of the day or other things you can’t control. Be in the moment, capture them if you wish, but most importantly just experience them.
