Photo Album Memories: The Audio Selfie Edition

I've got a large container full of my parents' old photo albums in our basement. The family pictures were taken approximately from 1970 to 1980.

If Mom had given me the albums a decade ago, there's a good chance I might have "misplaced" them. But after losing family members, I have realized the power of photography. Our memories can be skewed, subject to prejudices, or simply faded. But a photograph is a memory you can hold in your hands. A family picture is the best shot you have of seeing the past as it really was. And if you lose the photo, that accuracy is gone for good. Thank goodness Mom held onto these photo albums for so long. To me, they're a treasure.

But that doesn't mean I can't have fun with them.

Here's a photo from Thanksgiving, 1974. I'm the five-year-old in the bottom left of the photo and my sister Michelle - second from the right - was seven.

In case you don't recognize the technology we were huddled around, it's a cassette recorder. Kids today might not have much use for an old tape recorder, but they were so much fun back then. It was quite remarkable to press record, say a few lines, and then actually hear what you sounded like to other people. Those home recordings were the audio equivalent to taking a selfie.

I remember recording myself singing along with songs on the radio, or in groups like the one above. I'll bet someone up there just sang the chorus to "Sunshine on My Shoulders" onto the tape.

VCRs didn't exist in the early 70s, but you could hold the recorder up to the TV's speaker and record a whole Scooby Doo episode. Later you could reenact the cartoon with Barbie dolls and Star Wars action figures, not that I ever did that. And I don't know how many times I tried to record the theme music for M.A.S.H., only to have it "Ruined!" by Mom yelling in the background that it was time for dinner.

My favorite story about tape recorders came from a guy I teach with. He had a childhood buddy who hid the recorder behind the family's toilet so he could record his father in the bathroom. Later he'd play the tape for friends on the big stereo in the living room. He called the tape, "Dad's Greatest Hits".

Oh man, that's funny.