Star Beacon
May 14, 2008 06:58 pm
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The reason I bought a DVD recorder a few years back was to burn copies of old family videotapes to the more stable medium.
Some of my tapes are more than 20 years old and could break and then all of those memories are gone.
Also, my camcorder could go up and I would have nothing to play the recordings on while transferring the video to DVD.
I sort of forgot about this task until I heard a discussion on a technology-based radio talk show.
So I immediately grabbed one of dozens of 8mm and Hi-8 video tapes I had and popped it in the camcorder and hooked it up to the DVD recorder.
There were videos of daughter Megan taking the tests necessary to get into kindergarten.
She had to show the lady at a table numbers and letters. She had to bounce-pass a basketball to the person. She had to show she could skip. Skipping is important, you know. Except she flunked skipping.
But not to worry. Megan assures me she can skip today. But she wouldn’t do it.
On the same tape — now transferred to hard disk — was her entire graduation, from nursery school.
Well, I mercifully cut the boring parts, areas where my daughter wasn’t involved.
I took the latest version of my camcorder out last weekend again, this time recording another graduation.
Megan this time was in full cap and gown, ending her time at Ashland University.
I’ve been to plenty of graduations and must admit they are difficult to remember.
My high school graduation is totally lost on me. Did I ever graduate? I must have but would be hard-pressed to tell you anything about it.
College was a little clearer for me. President Jimmy Carter’s Health and Urban Development director, Patricia Roberts Harris, was our speaker. It was a furnace in the gymnasium at Kent State where graduation was held.
She droned on and on about the oppression of black people. Everybody felt pretty oppressed by the second hour of her speech. Mom for some reason didn’t bring a camera and placed my cap and gown in the living room closet when we got home. She said she’d get the camera out in a day or two and get my picture. We’re still waiting. Fortunately, I haven’t changed a bit so if we can find my $7 cap and gown, we can still get that picture.
Wife Louise’s graduation from college was held the same day as a Rolling Stones concert. I dejectedly went to her graduation. Don’t remember anything about that either. Bet I would have remembered the Stones concert.
I do remember it was at Dix Stadium at Kent and the parking lot was so crowded it took an hour to get out. Fortunately, WMMS radio broadcast Stones music only all day because of the concert. That part of the day, I remember.
Son Derek broke his leg on one icy day going to class at Case Western Reserve University. He was still on crutches on the day of his undergraduate graduation. Students entered the stage at Case from both sides, so diplomas could be given out twice as fast. They exited down a ladder placed in the middle of the stage.
Derek had the auditorium in suspense for a couple of minutes as he stood swinging his legs over the ladder while on crutches. Would he make it down the steps? Would he fall and break the other leg?
I was a few seconds from getting up and going to the front to help when he successfully negotiated the stepladder and got to the floor OK. How historic. He could have fallen flat on his face in front of Geraldine Ferraro, who was speaker and the first woman candidate for vice president from a major political party.
The only thing I remember about Louise’s graduation with her master’s degree was they massacred her last name. I got it on tape too. Must remember to transfer to DVD.
Megan’s graduation last weekend was at the ungodly early hour of 10 a.m. But they got her name perfect and this being the cyberage, the full video of the event was available two days later on the university’s Web site.
What was more challenging was getting her dorm room cleared out before 4 p.m. Too bad you can’t sell dust bunnies on eBay.
What makes graduations less-than-memorable are the graduation speeches. Yeah, the graduate can take on the world. Yeah, explore new things. Yeah, you’re gonna make a difference.
Just find that first job and hope it is remotely connected to what you did in school for four or five years.
Lots more graduations are coming up in the weeks ahead. They are milestones in the lives of the students.
We remember them because of the photos, the videos, the years of work it takes to get to this point.
Then years and years and years later, when the graduation is nothing but a dim memory, I’ll be there to eventually transfer it all to DVD. If the damn camcorder still works.
Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com. f
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A ROBERT LEBZELTER column