It all started a few months ago when my daughter said it was sad we had never video taped her as a baby because she would love to see what she looked like. My eyes grew wide and I told her that I had a video in a box in the garage. I had copied all of the baby videos from the tiny tapes onto a large vhs tape before her dad and I split up back in 1991. 3 years of adorable footage of her actual birth day in the hospital through her 3rd birthday and her brother's birth through when he was crawling. 4 hours of tape which I copied onto DVDs and mailed to everyone. Aunt and Uncle in Chicago, my mom and dad and my daughter. At one point, dd said she cracked up because her dad is heard remarking on the tape that he would embarrass her someday by showing these videos to her boyfriend. And there she was sitting and watching it with her boyfriend. :-D
Watching those almost 20-y-o tapes gave me the desire to get my hands on a video that my mom had made of the super-8 movies my grandfather had shot of us in the 1960s. I asked my mom and she sent it to me right away. I made DVDs and mailed them out to everyone concerned. It is SO easy to mail DVDs. I put them into a greeting card.
I also mailed around the 1 hour of footage from the Chicago trip last month.
My next project will be more daunting. My husband's parents have a large pile of super-8 film reels from the 1960s that were never put onto video tape. I asked them to bring them over this weekend to my 5-y-o's birthday party. I can't wait to get my hands on the films and see my husband and his family in their youthful glory. I think they all will get a huge thrill out of it. I know I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the old footage of my parents dancing at their wedding, and myself and my brothers toddling around. And even stranger and more touching was seeing my departed grandparents "alive" again. I could read my grandmother's lips so clearly after my parents' wedding mouthing the word "marvelous". It felt like I was looking into the past using the Camera Obscura from the Night Gallery(1971-Rod Serling). Too bad the old movies don't have a sound track. But I am grateful for what is there.
I intend to send DVDs out to my husband's siblings. I think they will enjoy the footage. I figure, none of us are getting any younger. We should enjoy these things as a family now. As I always say, Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.
Disclaimer: The above picture is not my stuff. I don't remember what the camera and projector looked like, but it was a web photo that seemed familiar.
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