Actual letter writing is hard. Even before email, I used to type letters just because I could say more. But even if I got a letter typed, I then had to find an envelope without grease marks on it, and a stamp. If it was cold out, I would try to talk someone else into taking it to the mailbox. And then it took forever to get there, and who knew if you would ever hear back? Since I've always loved new technology, I used to send letter tapes to my sisters and nieces and nephew--back in the old days before cell phones. Long distance calling was pretty spendy, especially when I was being an at home mom (read--NO extras at all). I still have a lot of those tapes--and the funny thing is, I wish I would have shut up more, because now what is very fun to listen to is the kids in the background. One interesting tape is from Martie. Thinking Amber was taking a nap, she had grabbed a handful of frozen chocolate chips to munch on while she was taping a letter to me, and very soon after that Amber wandered into the room. Martie covered up the chocolate chips and kept talking, but Amber just kept circling around, "almost like she was sniffing!" Martie laughed, "It's almost like she has a radar for chocolate!"
Sometimes the kids made tapes too, and they are still great! Although they tend to have long pauses while they wandered off, or had fights over who was going to tape next, punctuated by earsplitting scraping noises as they picked up the tape player and plunked it down again. It would be neat to figure out how to get tapes onto CDs. I'd love to have the one Tom and Val made for Kris when she and Michael were living in England. It's probably somewhere around, unlabeled.
5 comments:
Oh, I loved the story tapes. I miss them. It wsa fun to get al the day to day details. I remember we would listen to them more than once, it was almost like a mini-visit.
Listening to those tapes is cool...I wish we had made even more, especially with the kids talking. I saw a post on Kim Komando about transferring the tapes to .mp3 files, and we are on the same wavelength. It does require buying a piece of hardware, but it's under $100. While I don't think we'd get much on those download sites (i.e., the next gen of how to bore non-relatives to death), still, WE would love to strain our ears for every syllable!
Michael says he has the stuff--I just have to give him some tapes to try! Now that I am back from the dead (you didn't know I went?) I probably can.
you are indeed 60 mom....yes indeed...a ripe old age for a ripe old gal....
Love ya.
We can transfer tapes to CD or whatever format you want. I requires equipment that I don't remember if we have or borrowed. I think it was just a special cable/cord. Greg might remember. Anyway, we took that tape of Dad telling the story and got it on a DVD, so it can be done. BTW, I still have that tape of Tom and Laura when we lived in England. It's very funny. Tom went on this long schpeel of getting Laura to say various forms of fart in different contexts. That was the main plot, fart.
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