Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Looking backward through a glass darkly

For our anniversary, my Lovely and Brilliant Wife gave me a VCR-Computer converter so I could put the old movies I've stored away on VHS onto my computer and thence onto DVD. Well, the first thing I converted was my dad's wedding video from 1985. Because it wasn't copyrighted, I stuck it up on the Internet Archive for the world to see.

The quality is a little grungy, either from the aged tape or from my too-wimpy computer. Mostly it will be of interest to family members, although anyone who wants to is welcome to mock the sight of me, standing up as the best man at 18 in my first grown-up suit. (I still have that jacket hanging in my closet.)

It was really strange hearing my dad's voice. See, I sound a whole lot like him, just slightly lower. But Long Drink could be a ringer for him every time he opens his mouth. I hadn't realized they were that similar. Mostly, it was good just to see my dad as I remember him, six years before he died. We had kind of a complicated relationship, my dad and I, and I wish he could have lived to see it settle into normalcy and to enjoy his tribe of grandchildren.

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