Thursday, September 18, 2008

Home Movie Nightmares

My mom has a "farm" about 20 minutes north of us. Although the 10 acres that they rent out to a local farmer make it technically a farm, it's more of a weekend home. My mom works in Chicago during the week, my step-father putters.
Recently I have been doing work around the farm because we need a little extra cash to pay for all of our kids activities and for the upcoming gift-giving season.
As I was cleaning her living room, I ran across a massive box full of videotapes, including, several of our home movies. So I borrowed some to take a gander.
Back in the early to mid eighties my parents bought a video cassette recorder. It consisted of two different machines that were connected together, it had a remote that was attached to a long wire. It also came with a camera. Unlike cameras of today it was huge and bulky. In order to work it, you toted part of the VCR on your shoulder like a purse and the camera was attached with a wire. It was cutting-edge technology people.
The tapes that I had were mostly family vacations, birthday parties, and Christmases. I'd say about 80% of the family vacations were shots out the window as we drove. A good 10% were either my mom or my dad not turning the camera off right and we'd see wildly spinning views of the world as they put it down, then a sideways view of the world and people having everyday conversations in the background. There was also quite a bit of time of my parents telling me or my sisters to get out of the shot while they panned the landscape.
What I've realized is that 1.) unlike Hollywood movies, I will probably never look back at these movies crying about what fun we had. 2.) I will probably never be able to watch these movies without getting motion sickness. 3.) As much as I joke about it, there was a very real point in my life when I walked around looking like Bobby Brady, and 4.) I really hope I never wear my pants that high again.
Probably the best part of the home movies was that the last Christmas was taped over a recording that my mother made of Little Miss Marker when it was on WGN in (probably) November 1984. Mr. H. and I really enjoyed fast forwarding the movie and watching all of the commercials. In addition to a really old White Castles commercial about a bunch of college kids driving an hour to get some hamburgers (possible inspiration for Harold and Kumar), there were a bunch of commercials for furniture stores that featured some really awful looking furniture which at the time was probably very stylish, and a bunch of old jingles to which I could sadly still sing along.
Come on let's here it:

Motra, Motra, Motra, Motra
Now my car shifts sweet!
giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up
Motra, Motra, Motra, Motra
At a price you can't beat!
giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up
You better shift to the Motra

and shift for the better right now!

But by far my favorite was for Love's Baby Soft, that showed a teenage girl and boy falling in love because she was wearing Love's Baby Soft. I looked for it on Youtube with no success. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to get the videotape into my computer so I could share it.

4 comments:

Rayne said...

Love's Baby Soft! That was my first 'real' perfume when I was a tween. They still have it. I bought some for my younger daughter last month but I think I was more excited about it then she was.
Do you remember Windsong?

Woodlandmama said...

I am allergic to most perfumes. I found this out by using Exclamation! as a kid. I don't remember Windsong.

Anonymous said...

Your windsong stays on my mind........

NKB

steenky bee said...

What a fun jaunt down memory lane. I stumbled across an old box from high school and college a while ago. I just sat and combed through everything. It was wonderful.

Also, I totally remember Loves, Exclamation! and Windsong. Remember that corny song..."I can't seem to forget you. Your windsong stays on my mind"?