I wasn’t really that into taking movies of the family when the kids were young, but when I did, I REALLY did. Not always, but often, I would just set the camera up and let ‘er roll.  Which means two hours of birthday parties, two hours of Christmas morning.  Those are pretty tedious to transfer to DVD – I have to cut something out, and it’s not an easy process in that regard.  Of course, cutting out shots of my butt walking in front of the camera is an easy edit-out.  Other things are not so easy. 

Do I really want to discard forever even one syllable of a toddler’s voice saying “Mom?” even if it is for the fifteenth time on that tape?  Do I really want to erase a spontaneous fist fight between three rowdy boys?  Doesn’t it make the videos of brotherly love even sweeter?  What about the tapes of other people’s kids?  Do they have enough of their own or should I save that unique moment when they were in my camera’s eye?

One tape I opened up yesterday was one I had never seen, and there was no editing to be done.  I was away for Father’s Day in 1995 when the boys, who were 10, 7 and 6 years old, with Joe as the leader, had set up breakfast out in the carport for Al.  The tape started with a tour of the table, which was replete with a tablecloth, two candles, a vase of flowers in a shamrock Lalique vase, a bowl of cereal with bananas beautifully presented with a plate underneath, a glass of water, a glass of orange juice.  The Father of Honor would be seated in his comfy desk chair.  George the Dog walked around and threatened to eat the cereal before Dad came out and constantly got tangled in the legs of the table, worrying me that I would watch as it all came tumbling down.  Then Andy brought Al out, with his eyes closed, down the front steps to the driveway where he was allowed to open his eyes and see Joe’s gift of the American flag flying above him, and was then escorted to his seat at the table.  After Al was seated and eating his breakfast, Joe walked between Andy and Jeff who were anxiously monitoring Al to make sure he was as thrilled as they hoped he would be.  Joe then said that indeed, they had done a good job and patted his little brothers on the head and put his arms around their shoulders.  When the presents were opened inside, Al ended the tape with the pronouncement that it was his best Father’s Day ever.  

Some of the tapes the kids made are unwatchable – a vertiginous mess of feet and ceilings and faces too close to the camera and two others clamoring for their turn as photographer, but that one was a winner, a keeper, the best Father’s Day recording ever.

ADDENDUM:  There is a post script to this story.  I took Al up to the editing room to watch this particular video.  There was one part that we will forever wonder about.  I was clearly out of town.  My present was opened without me there.  What concerns us is that Joe made a comment about “Andy held the ladder really well while I put the flag up.”  Wait a minute.  The flag holder is just below the second story window right over a driveway that goes pretty much straight down.  Because of that wicked slant, it is a challenge for an adult to hold the ladder for another adult when work needs to be done in the vicinity of the second story windows.   Al and I don’t like to think about the scene that turned out just fine, the flag flying, the kids safe.  As Al said “where was the supervision?”  I’m sure there are more stories like that one which we will only hear around future Thanksgiving tables when our sons have decided we are old enough to hear the truth of their escapades.  Yikes.