By Joaquin Gallegos
Photo by Joaquin Gallegos
I am a time traveler. I say that again, I am a time traveler. I am a person who has gone back in time and has returned as a different person. As with all time travel, it had its limits. For me, one limit was that I could only go back into my own timeline. A second limit, I could only observe. However, there was one change I could make. That change was in my mind in the way I felt about those moments. In order to travel I needed tickets. Those tickets were my home movies recorded on video tapes.
Why I decided to start going back
Approaching the half-century mark leaves a lot to compare to from youth till now. The world has changed and our society has changed along with it. Thankfully technology has also moved forward. As the saying goes, nothing lasts forever. Things are now digitized but there was a time when things were more physical. For instance, we had video stores where the common person would go to the store to borrow a videotape movie to put into their device at home and watch. Then return it back to the same store the next day (be kind, rewind).
People also used a similar style to record moments of their own lives. I had collected many of these types of tapes. Much like forgotten Christmas decorations, they sat dormant in a box, until one day they would be brought back to life from the cryogenics of time.
It all started when I saw a commercial on TV that said old Video tapes only had a shelf life of 25 years. This came as a surprise to me but something I should have known. I guess I always thought that they would keep like all those old documentaries. I envisioned the day that I would sit back and watch them like that scene from Christmas Vacation when Chevy Chase watched old movies in his attic. This news, however, came as a shock, which was more like a scene from the movie Airplane where the passengers go berserk. I had no way to watch these movies let alone a way to save them.
Equipment use
Back in the midpoint of the nineteen-nineties, the available go-to recording device was a video camera called a camcorder. Which I assume was the convergence of two words camera and recorder. As a young kid, I was used to recording my favorite songs from the radio on my boombox. It seemed to be a natural transition from music cassette tapes to recording movies on a camcorder.
I purchased my first camcorder when I was 18. Many years before cell phones, (where a push of a button records events), camcorders required a person to purchase video tapes to put into them. I have had 3 camcorders over the years. The first used VHS-C cassette tapes which were like mini versions of the larger VHS tapes that were put into the VCR players. The magnetic tape inside was the same width although not as long of video to record on. Usually narrowed to a 30-minute length or a one-hour length with a slightly poorer quality.
In order to save my tapes I needed to find pieces of equipment that could play them. Luckily we have a service called Offer Up. For a small cost of $60 I became a proud owner of a 1998 vintage piece of museum art otherwise known as a VCR. Additionally, I had to purchase a corresponding communication cable from Amazon. This communication cable would become the unwitting wormhole for which my life-changing experience would occur.
I was about to be sucked into a scene like the TV show Quantum Leap. This was because it made the connection from old technology (RCA Cables) to the current technology (USB Connection). Not bad for an investment of $20. There would be other things needed like a cleaning tape and regular VHS movie tapes to practice with. Additionally, not all my tapes were in the same format. As technology and time progressed I would buy two more camcorders which took a different kind of tape called 8mm. Unfortunately, I need to use those same devices to playback those kinds of tapes. Whenever any of the tapes were being played there was a risk that they might break or get caught up like a ribbon on a Christmas present in the device.
Every session always involved a certain amount of finger-crossing.
Saving the Memories. My own Netflix-like series begins
Photo by Joaquin Gallegos
I can almost think of the tapes as seasons with each tape being its own episode. At last count, there were 83 tapes altogether. I already knew going into it I was in for an epic adventure like Game of Thrones. Only, instead of dragons, there would be highs and lows of emotions. Having lived through it I knew that I would be my own hero and villain in the timeline as well. There would be moments I am not necessarily proud of but that is life. I also knew that there would be family members and long-lost friends coming into and out of view during the recordings.
One person in particular that I would see a lot of would be my then-girlfriend (later wife). Surprisingly, I came to find out that she was actually behind the camera in about half of the recordings. Something I would have denied prior to the viewings. The proof is in the pudding. So, therefore, some of what I saw was through her eyes. Meaning that, in a way, I too was seeing these things for the first time.
I envisioned it like this. Season one was the Wonder Years (1995-1999). The time before marriage and before kids. This was a time spent with the girlfriend, family and friends. Holidays when the families were still together and actually got along. Then in season two, it would go into marriage (1999) and the kids being born (2000 and 2002). My own family being the center of those memories.
It's a funny thing about memories. We all have them, but what we remember is isolated to a specific moment that we try to remember. Almost like a specific word search on Google. What often is not brought up is the other things that were going on during the memory. Things such as vehicles we once owned, places we lived, and pets we cherished that have moved on are also in the peripheral of video memories.
What stands out above those things is the chance to see people who have passed on. So many times as we stand by their gravesites we recognize that there will never be more moments with them. They will not be there in new memories or pictures. We would want just one more chance to see them. That chance was in these videos. They are there, waiting to look at me again. In viewing the tapes, I heard my mom's laughter once again. I heard my grandmother making sure everyone had enough to eat. I saw my cousin smiling his big grin he was so well known for.
During the viewing of the videos, the thought comes to me that I am alone watching these memories. However, these are not just my memories, they are the memories of the other people who were there and they too should be given the chance to see things the way they were. I did not come from a tech-savvy family. My siblings did not have video cameras nor did the rest of my family. One truth came to my mind. I held a treasure within these tapes that needed to be shared. From that thought, I planned to make digital copies and distribute them to family and friends.
Reality Bites..
Coming back to reality after having watched a tape, sometimes there is the feeling like I am reforming history. The thought is of a scene from the movie Butterfly Effect when Ashton Kutcher’s character has to reconfigure his memories by changing a small detail which leads to a new outcome. In my case, it’s the way I feel about my own history that often changes. Sometimes I called the guy in the video a jerk. That guy was me.
One thing about history in retrospect is the little traditions that come to light that every family does in their own way that is so easily overlooked. Sometimes they slowly drift away if no one keeps them going or in my case when the person passes.
One such memory is when my mom would make us little Halloween gift bags every year even though we were adults. I took the small gesture for granted. Now, they are just those little flakes of memories.
Another memory was of the Astro Van. An everyday vehicle that my wife and I went on our adventures with during our youth that eventually became the family bus where we brought home each of our two babies from the hospital. It was somewhat of a bridge between Season 1 and Season 2.
Looking back, when a lot of kids my age were into other activities I decided to do this instead. Even though I cannot say why, I can only say I am thankful for having done it, not knowing that it would be a gift to my older self as if to say, “Remember where you come from”.
For me, the importance of transferring these videos to a digital format is not just to see them for a later time but also to save a legacy for the future. One day a distant relative might see us in these videos and not know who we were. What they will see will be the love that existed in our togetherness of those lost moments.
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