age of the VCR

For as long as I can remember, my father has been an absolutely crazy, nostalgia-obsessed pack rat. 

We used to live on a dead-end road in Elba, NY, for about 7 years, and I swear to you, there were so many boxes of random shit lying around, people would think we were either the new family on the block or getting the hell outta dodge.  In reality, these boxes contained anything from old cards to magazines, workshop tools to blank notebooks, shotgun bullets to pistols.  I know for a fact this enraged my mother to no end, which is probably one of the thousands of reasons she and my father got a divorce.  "Why aren't these GODDAMN boxes unpacked yet?  They've been here for YEARS." 

I can't say that looking back as an adult, reaching the stage in life where I could potentially share the same living space with someone for the rest of my life in the near future, that I blamed her at all.  The real proof of my Dad's disease, though, was not in our basement--it was in our entertainment center.

Because my Dad was (and still is) a custodian who worked the 3rd shift at Notre Dame (a tiny, decrepit, poor Catholic high school in Batavia) he would be gone most nights and home during the day.  Nowadays, he works split shifts; partial morning hours before kids arrive, and then after school hours when they're gone. Back then, during his night owl lifestyle, he would sleep when he was home.  This posed a large problem for his television watching-- most things that he enjoyed (which, still, are few and far between) were on in the evenings.  Seinfeld, Northern Exposure, Nova.  Even a Canadian slapstick television show, that I happen to love: The Red Green Show.  All of his favorites were on the air while he was at work. 

Did my Dad fret?  Did he cry himself to sleep in the mornings after turpentining and scrubbing?  Or did he find a solution?

Normally, for any sort of problem, my Dad will find an exceptional solution--only after complaining and moaning over the problem in the first place.  Nevertheless, he solves the issue at hand.  In this case, you ask?  VHS tapes.  Remember, this is WAY before DVR, WAY before you could pause live television, before DVD's even existed.  VCR's, while I was growing up, were the only thing that movie lovers knew.  We had no predictions of the soon-to-be glory of compact disc movies, or the apocolyptic stoppage of current television via a DVR system or magical remote.

My Dad would buy multiple packages of blank VHS tapes from Walmart (JVC or Memorex, typically) and just go to town on our poor VCR.  "Record (insert show) at such and such a time, then record (insert second show) an hour later.  They're on the same station, so it shouldn't be difficult."  My mother, I'm assuming, was in charge of this whole process because I sure as hell stayed out of the way.  My brother was around 3 years old, so while he would sometimes fidget with the VCR and its contents, he preferred to stab me with mechanical pencils instead.  (Seriously.  I still have the scar.)

I don't know which recording eventually made my mother call for divorce papers, but I'm guessing it was the season finale of Seinfeld or a nature special featuring praying mantis, small spiders, and the circle of life.  I was most likely in the other room, watching an animated, PG version of the circle of life in the form of The Lion King.  My friends and I used to make a list of all characters in the film, choose roles, go to each other's houses, and watch this movie while speaking all "our" lines.  If you know me, this explains a lot, right?

After my Mom ripped her final task out of the VCR, tossed it at my Dad, and wiped her hands clean of recording duties forever, my Dad set out to continue his recording journey on his own.  Like I said, I can't blame my mom for divorcing my dad over VHS tapes, especially after probably falling over stacks of them.  I can almost remember them arguing, a barricade of black and white plastic and recording tape built up in the middle, with only inch-by-inch squares open for peepholes.  I also can almost remember my Mom sticking her pointer finger at the middle, playing a life-sized game of Jenga, and knocking the wall to my father's feet.  Why would she be okay with my Dad saving time via television show when he wasn't willing to rewind the time they had missed together as spouses because he was gone every week night?

After my Mom left, surrounded by series' endings, love-triangle solutions, sarcasm and laughter, and more than one missed romantic opportunity, my Dad boxed all of his memories up, taped them shut, and got the hell out of dodge.

Into my adolescence and young adulthood, my Dad was still obsessed over VHS tapes and recording things he wanted to keep forever, things he would never watch though he intended to, things he wanted to memorialize on film.  He cried when the DVD player was introduced as the main form of playing videos, and had me drive him (only half way) to an asylum when he realized that people elsewhere, outside the scope of his life, could pause their television and record it in a small box next to their TV.  He's moved twice, and continued the struggle; however, the last two years, in dealing with my brother's massive shitstorm of a life, he hasn't had much time to record what he wants to watch.  He also didn't pay his cable bill for several months, and never had it turned back on.  Instead, he watches antenna TV, which has all of your basics, and I'm still able to watch Jeopardy, live, with him if I go over for dinner.  His tapes are in boxes in his coat closet, which is used for everything but coats.

Right now I'm surrounded by picture frames, pottery I made in college, the four towels I selected to move with (four was recommended to me by a friend), artwork, a few classic games like Scrabble and Catch Phrase.  I'm almost packed up.  The past two days, I've had a real tough time coming to grips with the fact that I HAVE to throw shit out, that I HAVE to give things away, that I can't keep everything in my apartment.  Then, I actually tried it.  I have to admit: it was somewhat liberating, and I ended up taking four bags of garbage and several boxes to the dumpster, while taking a carload of things to the local AmVets resale retail shop.  I don't yet miss anything I've thrown away.

I thought about why some people keep things, and what makes it so damn hard to get rid of those things when the time demands it.  I mean, some of the hardest things to get rid of for me thus far have been candles, extra folders, and stray chapsticks.  What if my new apartment smells like a dumpster and I'm organizing my school work, surrounded by the stench, when I realize my lips are chapped?  People naturally hold on to things not because they are things, but because they are memories of something--of a time, of a place, a person, or an event.  When you throw those things out, you are also throwing away that time you spent with that person in that place when you did that thing.  And on a cold day, what if you need that memory?

In a short two days, I've learned that it's okay to throw away memories in light of making new ones.  It's alright to let those places go, those super-tiny moments, otherwise you'll become bogged down by the past.  I don't want to enter a new stage of my life where I settle down, become accustomed, and then open up a closet door and find forgotten boxes of dust lying quietly, untouched, unloved.  My Dad has always brought with him the things he can't forget,  I only want to bring what I need.