End of an Era

Pardon me for a moment, while I indulge myself in a bit of geeky nostalgia.

Michael will likely appreciate this, maybe others of you as well.

Twenty years ago in 1987 I was a junior in college, the home VCR trend was really starting to take off in a big way and units were affordable even for the average student. It was actually close to the fall before my senior year at UT and I had entertained thoughts of buying myself my first VCR. I was getting ready to move into Andy Holt Apartments on campus (cable!) and it was time.

Plus there was another little event coming up....the premiere of an obscure new TV series - some kind of update to an older show. Maybe you heard of it - "Star Trek: The Next Generation"?

TNG was set to start, so I figured this was as good a time to buy my first VCR as any and tape the episodes. Which I did. Myself and a number of friends (this was before I met Michael, or he would've been there) camped out in the living room to watch this new show, brand new VCR humming.

So I taped. And taped. And taped.

Eventually I had all 178 episodes of Next Gen taped. And all 176 episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". And almost all the 172 episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" (I missed a couple here and there, what with being married and a father by that time). Plus the first couple of seasons of "Star Trek: Enterprise".

Suffice to say, my videotape collection was quite extensive.

And they didn't just sit on shelves, at least not at first. I watched and re-watched, and eventually reintroduced some of them to Brainyboy. They've been a well thought of collection.

But now it's at an end.

For the past several years, the set of tapes has resided in the top of a closet in the kids' playroom. We're in the process of moving Brainyboy out of his small room upstairs and into the bigger playroom downstairs, and moving what's in there to his old room. And that means the tapes have to go.

*sniff*

It wasn't a terribly difficult decision, since all the series are readily available on DVD anytime I want to buy them. It's just the history of it all, and the time I spent making sure every episode was taped, labeled and stored.

But alas, this weekend they've all been boxed up and put in the garage to be tossed. What with the advent of recordable DVD's and the DVR on my cable, I have no more use even for blank videotapes. I remember the days I'd hoard any scrap of blank tapes to record shows on. No longer.

Well, for almost 20 years it's been fun guys. Remember me fondly.

Wait...ok, confession. I kept the first and last tapes from each series, the premiers and finales.

Gotta have something to hold onto.