Aural history

[greatbear]

When I was a wee young'un, one of my prized possessions was my Panasonic cassette recorder. I had actually a few over the years, as I literally wore them out from the use/abuse I subjected them to. I would record music form the radio, or from my record player, often with these homemade direct connection cables for the highest fidelity I could muster. Not bad for an 11 year old I guess. Aside from all the music I was immersed in, I also used to record the world around me, as well as myself. I taped phone conversations with friends. Taped the sounds of company at the house. Took it to school and taped the sounds in the classrooms and concerts and field trips. When I was not playing my music (which even then was not your everyday Top 40 fare), I was inadvertently documenting the world around me. Over the years most of the tapes were used over for some other purpose or trashed after they had worn out. But still, the countless dozens of accumulated cassettes, though they had dwindled in number, remained in my memories as bits of the best parts of my life.

Just shy of exactly 20 years ago, after building this new house and moving things, I was cleaning stuff from my bedroom closet. A vent pipe stood inside this closet as part of the plumbing in the old place. When I had finally cleared out all the crap I noticed something shiny behind the pipe and below the floor of the closet. It was that first Panasonic cassette recorder. I thought I had lost it for good more than a decade prior, blaming it on someone walking off with it while outside in the yard or some such. I was reunited with my buddy, mostly intact and still around after several other tape recorders had taken it's place and fell aside after being worn out or broken.

The recorder found itself mostly in storage again. Occasionally it was dragged out for nostalgia's sake or for Mom to use for playing some of her language tapes in and around the house. But my old friend stayed in storage in these recent years.

Last month I was doing some major cleaning of accumulated cruft and junk, much of which was not touched in years. While clumsily hauling the crap from the basement, I knocked over several boxes, a couple of which spilled their contents on the floor. One of the boxes was full of those ancient tapes. I knew that one day soon, I'd have to try and see if anything was listenable. I did so a little while back. I popped four C-cells into the old Panasonic and started fumbling through the mess.

Those ancient mix tapes sounded pretty bad quality-wise, but it did not matter. To me, it was the same as a pristine first pressing vinyl copy being played for the first time. Memories came flooding in, to those days in my youth, the good and the bad. It made me smile. A tape of me and my friend on the phone talking together, watching the same Peanuts TV special commenting on how Lucy is going to yank that football away as usual. I tried to figure out in my head what the hell made me tape such things way back when. I found more crazy mix tapes, many others which were broken or tangled and not playable. I then popped another one in and heard myself talking, then another voice which I remembered to be one of Mom's co-workers. Then I heard her voice. It was Mom talking. A chill ran down my spine and my heart leapt. I was so not ready for that. It was scary, but welcome. I sat there with the tape running but not really listening. My mind was filled with images and feelings and emotions and I began to shake and cry. I was about to shut off the tape and then it stopped on it's own. The tape was fine, but the belt inside the antique tape deck had broken. I guess it was too much for the both of us.

Comments

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear I was not the only one who did this sort of thing. Thinking back, it made sense, since we are spoiled by the tech of today. No camcorders or things like that, so we made do with sound. I sincerely hope to find her saying something that makes me smile, and I will transcribe it into a digital format and use it as a greeting or some such.