[originally posted: 5/13/2017]
I’ve been telling my dad for months to give me any VHS’s that he still has so I can digitize them.
He had one of the gigantic 1980’s over-the-shoulder VHS camcorders, probably the Panasonic Omnivideo Pv-9400 or similar. My most common memory of that clunky thing was, humorously, not being chased by it in for home videos, but rather, seeing it setup in the family room connected to the VHS player for the purposes of copying rented tapes from Blockbuster. Hahahahaha, the original pirates…one of those things that makes me love my dad even more.
Whenever I’ve seen him over the last few months, he’s forgotten to bring the tapes and I’ve forgotten to remind him. So, when I found myself at my parents’ house recently, I made a point of not leaving without them.
“Do you have those tapes?” I asked while we were sitting in the living room.
“I have to find them,” Dad said, leaving the room to get them.
My mom, sitting next to me, has a look of confusion mixed with anxiousness. “What tapes?”
I play off her off response by replying, “Home videos to copy to the computer. Why, do you have another kind of tape laying around?”
“Well, sure,” she answers almost blase, to my utmost surprise, “In our 30s we made a tape, only one, but he lost it.”
Ohmygod, that was the best thing she could’ve said. Good for them, I’m not even grossed out! Except now, I have a box of tapes that I’m really hoping doesn’t contain their lost extracurricular activities…