It’s a picture of me taking a picture. That constitutes the excitement for today. It is too hot. If you look closely, you can see the half-shadow of my hat. This is the weightless straw hat I prefer for bike riding, you can notice how the sun shines through it, but still makes just enough shade.
Wow, those VHS videos are challenging. In some cases, it is a multi-stage process just to compile the digital files. All are longer than a standard 4.7GB DVD disk and have to be compressed. I have to monitor the last part of each home movie, as my capture equipment (Dazzle) will cost you the blank disk and two hours work if it slips into rewind. That means I see a lot of footage of normal families, and causes me to lament.Not only was my family never on anything like a cruise ship, holiday, vacation, theme park or seashore, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be caught dead there with that pack of hick town rubes anyway. But what I can’t avoid noticing is the way other kids were raised in an atmosphere where they knew they were protected, right or wrong, they were always protected. In my family, you never knew when they’d come in on the side against you. It meant every productive undertaking had to be done with the utmost secrecy, often adding prohibitively to the cost.
Most shocking is the degree of respect other children get in these movies. If the kid doesn’t like a food, they are not forced to eat it. If the child does not want to share, it is considered a right, not something you beat out of the little bastard in public. The contrast is shocking. In my family, for private property, there was no law and order, for performance, there was too much. Nothing personal was protected, people could help themselves as soon as your back was turned, but every move you made was subject to the most intense scrutiny and criticism.
Anyone can see the results in my personality today. You can do whatever you want, I couldn’t care less as long as you don’t get hinder me. But don’t you try to back out of a contract or get away with anything, don’t ask to borrow what you should have on your own, and don’t make any promises that include me. I’ll protect your property as long as you don’t try to tell me how to do so. Play your guitar any way you want, but you if you do, I’ll fire you. There are clear defining lines between yours, mine and ours. Drop off a cliff for all I care, just don’t land on my bicycle.
The tapes are a rush job. The owner is leaving for Israel tomorrow at noon and I’ll have just the first two completed. Like myself, fifteen years ago he was still getting asked for ID. He is totally the family man type. One thing that put me off to marriage was my exposure to hundreds of married men at the phone company. They had one thing in common, a wife that stopped talking about anything meaningful the day after the wedding. No wonder so many men join clubs and societies. At least there is somebody to talk to.
That is, I don’t mind the work, the pressure or the responsibility of marriage. It is that I doubt I could handle the boredom. That is where Robyn was great and Canan was superb. They knew enough about math, physics, history and the world in general that they could have a conversation, and could easily match me for solutions and new ideas. Try that with a woman in Florida, where the only thing on their minds is immediate self-comfort. You can’t even mention the kind of day you had at work, that’s not their problem, as long as you keep the money rolling in, they want to get back to their soap opera. Yep, I wouldn’t be able to handle the boredom.
