Nobody wants to hear what I think. At least that’s what I tell myself. Maybe it’s true, so for what it’s worth consider this a letter to the future. A letter for those who might actually care.
My grandma used to write letters on tape. She was blind, and we would listen to the news from her, then recorcd over her words to send our own news back to her. The postal service allows for sending bulk mailing like this free for the blind. Still, it cost money for the tapes, mailer, and recorders. Fortunately, these are all reusable.
The bad news of all this was brought to my attention after my grandma’s death. She also had a Citezens Band radio to talk to people in town, or in range of her CB antenna. A friend of hers commented that she loved to her my grandma talk, and listen to her go on about her family and grand kids. “She ought to have had her own radio showw. I would love to listen to her more.”
The friend wanted to know if we had any archives of tapes from her. She sent letters to us all our lives, surely there were hours of grandma’s news from home.
All we could do was point to the last taped letter we had. That single tape of 60 minutes or so was it. Tapes were reused until they gave out, which could be years. All the news was consumed in the moment, erased, recorded over, sent back, and forgotten. Tapes were too expensive to buy one for a one time recording. Plus, where would we store them all?
I can tell you about my grandma, and other relatives, by the memories locked in my head. Funny stories, interesting stories, historical, educational, life from a perspective that doesn’t come at you from the mainstream viewpoint of history books and headlines in the newspapers.
Sometimes I don’t take part in conversations in a group, or say more than a quick sound bite at a time. This kind of writing is my way of saying hello to a future generation, saying things I think about. Remembering family moments. Maybe even sharing stories, or creative things for family, or Internet lurkers, to get to know me if they feel like it.
Unless these electrons that represent these digital bites of information get zapped by someone just looking to clear out space on a hard drive, it’s my word to the future.
hello, and thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy life on my digital front porch.