Effort of Creating a Lasting Memory

When I was a young girl, on special occasions my dad dragged out and erected the equipment and accouterments that were an early version of a video camera. 

The process of setting up this contraption occurred in dangerous chaos: among dried pine needles, paper wrappings and half-assembled gifts on Christmas morning; behind a dining room table strewn with a myriad of small, tipsy bowls of vinegar and food dye and slippery hard-boiled eggs, or backed up against the kitchen’s gas range for a wide angle view of my five siblings and me yielding serrated knives, handfuls of slippery seeds and gooey pumpkin pulp.

A key component of Dad’s camera paraphernalia involved a tripod, not the plastic fold-up you find on Amazon, but more like a metal extension ladder – which had to be located and dragged up from the bowels of a dark, unfinished basement. On the way up, he invariably scraped or dinged the staircase walls, letting loose a stream of resounding dammit-to-hells. Once the tripod was wrangled into place, Dad connected a black 2×4 on which was mounted five bulbs the size of salad plates. Somehow the tripod, the bulbs and a tangle of thick, black cords connected to a gray metal projector that spun a reel of fragile 8 mm filmy tape.

In testing the viability of the bulbs, Dad would burn himself.  It didn’t matter whether the body part affected was a finger, a forearm, or the back of an arm. The startling, blistering pain sparked a more intense set of dammit-to-hells. I’m embarrassed to confess that during these episodes my twin sister and I traded muffled giggles. Why Dad’s predictable injuries should prove funny to two freckled ten-year-olds is probably twisted.

By the time the video contraption was ready to roll, everyone’s nerves had frayed to the point of mass hysteria. Dad was nearly undone by the retrieving-heaving-burning routine, by the cacophony of our indignant and annoyed moans from holding or repeating candid moments, and by my mother’s hurry-ups and are-you-okay-Jack ministrations. At the time, my takeaway was that capturing idyllic family moments should be quick and effortless not sustained and torturous.

When the bulbs finally popped, flashing maniacally like police cars in the night, our eyes sustained a dizzying blindness.  To a child, the obliteration of sight seemed to last for hours.  Until our vision improved, carved pumpkins, colored eggs, and longed-for toys were stonily sidelined.

One would ask if all those excruciating video graphic sessions were worth the trouble? 

Until Dad passed away two years ago this month, the moments I’ve shared lay dormant. In sorting through my folk’s storage, I came upon the 8mm films in the bottom of a dusty, dilapidated carton. Paying heartily to convert them to DVD, the anticipated result was slightly disappointing. Early video technology lacked sound. The film’s tissue-like fragility produced black and white grainy images. 

What set Dad’s stockpile to life? Viewing them with my siblings and sharing our collective memories.  Now, I can and do admire my father’s perseverance through technology’s early years. His excruciating efforts have provided my family and me with reasons to reconvene and reminisce. 

For who are we, and what are we, without our memories and loved ones to share them with? 

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