Bait And Switch Title Cards

The snippets for this collection were chosen without any due care or attention. This is as close as you can get to picking video scenes while blindfolded. The original plan of keeping inside the margins of '1974 to 1976' (as it says in the opening panel) were ignored very early on. Don't be misled by the title card - there's 80s stuff a'plenty tossed into the mix.

Yes, the majority of these captured moments on super 8 film are from the prime directive years of the mid 70s, but the fact that we are told one thing and then shown another is clearly an example of the ole 'bait and switch' style of advertising. And I want no part of it.

Sandy and I did NOT go down to California together in the mid 70s. We didn't even know each other until 1982. But here we are; plain as day; strolling the grounds of Disneyland. So that's wrong for a kick off and should be eliminated from this showcase tout sweet. Please avert your eyes whenever those interloper scenes appear on screen.

The first image to assault us is of Dan standing on the side of the road watching Paul drive up in his Spitfire. Hard to believe that Dan would lose every bit of that full head of dark brown hair in the next 30 years. However, he's still got the denim jacket.

Tracy Goes To Disneyland

Another blog posting today for big sister Fran. A chance for her to see daughter Tracy in puny kidlike form once again. Long before the same daughter would get married and have two puny kidlike forms of her own over in Alberta.

This film goes all the way back to the Spring of 1976 and began what for me would be a regular routine of return visits to Southern California on an 'every other summer' schedule (in particular to Disneyland and Santa Barbara); a pace that wouldn't fully fizzle out until 1988. (Since then, I've only gone down ONCE!)

The full reel of this vacation is about 15/20 minutes, but we'll certainly chop that down here to a simple 2 or 3 minutes in order to please those impatient blog viewers with low attention spans and poor manners. I certainly don't need any more angry messages in the comment section full of foul language telling me how my films are always too long and boring; and why can't I ever upload a film that isn't 30 or 40 years old for crying out loud.

Bursting At The Seams

Bursting at the seams, my tattered old photo albums are. So many pictures of so many people from so long ago - with so little square footage to contain them all. Nobody warned me about that side of the double edged coin when I was snapping pix hither dither and yon in the 70s.

Oh sure - you can think you're being far sighted and 'heritage aware' while snapping all them thar vintage moments from years gone by, but have you actually stopped to wonder what happens when your mountain of so called priceless memories starts eating you out of house and home and demanding the TV remote? What then Einstein?

All I'm saying is, there's always a downside. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. If I'd known 40 years ago that taking pictures of the old gang in the old neighborhood in the good old days would end up filling enough photo albums to reach the moon, there might have been a better sense of quality control administered and certainly a 'less is more' mind set prevailing at the point of purchase/snapping.

One way I can lighten the load on my overburdened shelving units, is to raid some of these overstuffed photo albums and pull from their time encrusted resting spots the pictures that seem most in need of a once-a-decade airing. So that they may then be plopped down into the first video blog showcase that comes along.