Above: One of my rescued treasures from 30+ years ago.
Do you have VHS tapes tossed in a box somewhere?
And what the heck does VHS mean?
Yes, I had to look it up. VHS stands for Video Home System. All these years and I didn’t know. Pretty interesting to read about.
But as a Boomer, you may have been up close and personal with VHS systems, including those huge/heavy recorders that sat on your shoulder to take video of your child’s first birthday. And where are all those VHS tapes now? In the garage, in the basement, taped over with a favorite TV show?
My dozen or so VHS tapes were tossed into a dusty old box in the basement. And moved from house to house, even as the ability to play VHS tapes disappeared from our home equipment.
One day I took them out of the box (I probably had a better use for the box) and took a good look at them. The labels were barely legible or crossed off with something else written on top. I had to blow off the dust. What to do with them? Can’t just throw them out — could I?
Did some research on the Internet (kinda funny, the internet certainly wasn’t worldwide back when VHS was king of the video) and found a company that promised to save those special VHS moments from out-of-date VHS to DVD, a USP thumb drive, or even — gasp — the cloud (something else I have to look up to understand. I envision little clouds hovering over each of the Peanuts gang)! But, being the “They were soooo cute as toddlers-type-of-mom,” of course I paid to have those tapes from when my kids were newborns to middle-school aged converted to DVD; after all, do you have a VHS player in your home?
But here’s the thing: every time I look at clips of my kids from those DVDs, I start crying. They were so cute! They said the funniest things! They put Mr. Bubble (bad mom) on each other’s head in the tub (at ages 2 and 3, there was plenty of room in the tub for both; in fact, once there was a threesome with their friend Andrea.) They thought playing in boxes was fun! They sang along to the VHS tapes of Raffi* as they danced in front of the television. (“Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, won’t you please shine down on me.”) They tried to shovel snow with their little-bitty shovels. They opened birthday gifts with glee, ripping wrapping paper being the best part.
So, I sob watching these clips from their young lives; I just can’t help it. And then, thinking how special these bits of family history are to me, I send those video clips to my daughters’ now mid-30s selves. Do they sob? Are they thrilled? Do they recall how cute they were? (They have to remind me that if they were so cute then…..aren’t they still cute). NO! I get nothing. No thanks for the memories. No, “I remember that.” Only perhaps an “I remember when you dressed us the same (just different colors). What were you thinking?!”
It just doesn’t ring with them the way it does with me. I guess it’s because I’m their mom and recall the time and feelings surrounding it…and how heavy those darn video recorders were on my shoulder.
