Cutting Costs

This short video segment below should have been incorporated into the blog entry of last week when we were discussing the famous Elco Road Trip of 1984. Exactly 25 years separate the footage captured here of the hotel we booked that summer - and the image of the same hotel as it appeared when I passed thru Duncan last August on my way east to the sprawling town of Youbou. (Youbou town center pictured here.)

It's seems clear in the photo above, that most of the Village Green hotel groundskeeping staff have been let go over the years in an attempt to cut costs. And as far as I could see, there was no sign of Iris sunning herself on any reclining chairs outside our old suite.

Elco Road Trip 1984

We gathered up our best bats and gloves and picnic chairs and hit the road in the summer of 1984 - bound for the sprawling city of Duncan (on Vancouver Island) to participate in a big weekend softball tournament. Dunno why really. Maybe after 5 years, we'd tired of always playing on the same fields in the lower mainland. The change of scenery (and the 8AM game times) appealed to our sense of adventure. Naturally I dragged along my video camera equipment to record it all.

Rather than subject the 2 or 3 viewers that arrive here at NRP to the entire 4 hour video production that this event became, I've managed to trim things down to a more manageable three minutes of wasted screen time. As a consequence however, gone are the scenes of Iris juggling in the middle of the road; Doug complaining about the summer heat; and Laine arguing with an employee at a fast food take out window. Obtain the 'director's cut' DVD for all that sorta stuff. This here's just the heavily edited blog version.

The Me Of Years Gone By

Here we are in the cheap seats (across the road) attending the season opening game of the local baseball team at spacious Nat Bailey (formerly Capilano) Stadium. It's a chilly evening in the Spring of 1985, but Bill has brought along his Beatles wristwatch in order to keep us all entertained during the tedious pre-game ceremonies.

There was no real need to record this outing into the darkened surroundings of Midlothian Avenue that day. When I come across video stuff like this - misplaced amongst my boxed belongings - I often stop and wonder why 'the me of years gone by' bothered to shoot it in the first place. I'm certainly not as rabid about videotaping the world these days. I don't remember the last time I used my video camera.

But whether or not it should have been recorded for posterity, here it is anyway. Video proof of the three of us loitering around in the damp grass at the bottom of Q.E. Park a quarter of a century ago. We must have been collectively bored that night. Or I must have known how I'd eventually become the managing director/owner/operator of something called a BLOG in the far off future; and that this BLOG thingy would need to be filled up on a constant basis with little BLOG adventures of a televised sort. Just like this one.

July 17th, 1983 (1:30PM)

We're (all of us) constantly passing thru multitudes of moments every day that make up the massive bulk of what we will eventually describe as our personal lives. And rare it is that we'll bother to make a big deal about any of those little moments at the point of origin.

But that's what I enjoy about today's video. While strolling the top of Queen Elizabeth Park one long-ago summer's day with Sandy, a moment approaches; a moment arrives, and a determined effort is made to capture it forever on video tape. Now, if I ever feel the need, I can fire up the video playback machine and relive that early afternoon moment of July 17th 1983 at 1:30 PM over and over until I'm blue in the face.

This VHS footage (below) was shot a mere two months after a thrilling journey across the Atlantic to visit Jon and Maureen in England. Back in those days, video cameras were much too bulky to drag overseas on vacation. As it was, I had to use a mailman's sachel to carry all the parts with me; I looked like I was working for BCTV news. Even the battery was twice the size of today's elegant hand held digital video cameras for sale at Futureshop.

So recording a tourist stroll like this on VHS video was not an easy thing to do back in 1983. Too much fuss. I can only envy the kids of today with the ability to record most (if not all) of their entire waking life on video with only the most minor of inconvenience. I know I would have done it if I'd had the chance.