Last night I decided the take the plunge and schedule LegacyBox service. They will take 18 of my old Super 8s and two of my 8mm films and digitize them at a greatly reduced rate right now. (I found out about the offer from AARP, bless their hearts.)
I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for years, but the cost always deterred me. But some of my films are 50 years old, they’re precious to me, and I have no way to view them again until I get them updated to current formats (DVD and thumb drive).
So, last night I dragged out the three boxes of “home movies” that we’ve had stashed in our garage for eons and went through them to find the Top 20 that I want updated so I can show them on my TV and/or on my PC. I came up with 24 but put four back, as those are VHS tapes and they can wait. I want to see how well these 20 did, as far as surviving the decades quality-wise, before I do any more. There are another 20 that aren’t identified in any way. I will get them out and shine a flashlight through the cells to see what’s on them to decide if they’re worthy of long-term survival, too. I will do that while these ones are out getting done.
MEMORIES I’M PRESERVING THIS TIME
Some of the home movies I’m preserving during this first order are
- Deaken (my serval cat) as a kitten playing with Gabriel,the baby raccoon I raised at the same time and at about the same age as Deaken
- Meeting DeForest and Carolyn Kelley for the first time on May 4th, 1968
- Seeing (and maybe meeting) Leonard Nimoy in Seattle in ’68 (I don’t know if the brief meetings were caught on video)
- Training Cougar Mountain cats (with me leading Dreyfuss the leopard on a big cat chain)
- Deaken as a youngster and later at Shambala
- Edward Smith’s video of Bobby Kennedy in Oregon the week before he was assassinated
- My sisters and me as kids
- Lucky (the red-tail hawk I raised from a fuzz ball into a flying master)
- 1959 horses including our newborn filly Sandstorm
- My grandmothers
- Orphaned fawns I raised after the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980
- Deaken and me playing tag in 1980 when he was less than a year old Mom
- Dad watching the Matterhorn being built at Disneyland on one of our trips there as kids
- Deaken in his first snowfall as a youngster (he loved it)
- Deaken and me playing “Savage Predator”
- Clam digging as a kid
- Laurel’s 12th birthday (I think in a Poodle Skirt, which was all the rage at the time)
- Dad feeding seagulls
- a horseback trip to Enchanted Valley and other locations
- and whatever else is accompanying the films mentioned above
ANTICIPATING SOME SURPRISES
I haven’t seen these home movies in decades, but I remember them pretty well, I think. (Reckon I’m about to find out how well my memory serves me when it comes to recalling home movies!) I’m eager to see them again.
I just hope they’re in good enough shape for LegacyBox to work with them. They say most home movies remain in decent shape for from ten to 70 years (70 years under optimal conditions), and some of these are 60 years old, so I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I’m remaining optimistic because that’s the kind of person I am, but I will be devastated if it turns out the images on the earliest cells are beyond redemption. Eyeballing them, they still look okay to me, and the film isn’t sticking to itself, or stinky, so I’m very hopeful!
Wish me luck. If they turn out, I will find ways to share some of the highlights with you!
