Records & Tapes

I had no idea that tidying up would end up making me feel so amazingly old. The process of sorting through long-forgotten things seems to be bringing home to me that before you know it, what was only yesterday turns out to have been half a life away.

Perhaps it's the fact that much of the stuff that fills my spaces is that which was once current, and is now forgotten. I find myself in possession of a fair number of cassette tapes. The things that we used to listen to music on - before MP3 players killed off the CDs that killed off the tapes, that is. I haven't been through them too closely yet, but I can make a fair guess that the vast majority of the cassettes I own are filled with nothing more than harsh electronic squeaking noises - no, not the Pet Shop Boys, but data cassettes for the ZX Spectrum which I once spent so much time with.

Even so, part of my grand tidying up is in making old things all modern and digital, so I've been transferring a lot of tapes to my computer. And these last few days, I've been finding more tuneful tapes of music recorded off the radio, as people used to do. Lots of good songs, in fact, including the one above, which came out in 1977, when I was about five, although I discovered it much later on. But then somehow between the music some cheesy radio jingle will break in.. "Your 1989 power station! 103.2 F-M!!"

1989? Was it really that long ago?

And that's when it hit me. I was seventeen years old. That makes these tapes eighteen years old. These tapes, so normal and useful and everyday at the time, are half a life away, and now almost obsolete.

It's not just cassettes. Maybe the most painful part of the tidying is in finally coming to terms with the fact that a whole lot of my "stuff" is also obsolete. Hundreds of VHS tapes. 45rpm singles. 33rpm LPs.. Even floppy discs, once an everyday essential, have now been taken over by time. So I'm also copying all my floppy discs onto something newer. I must have at least 400 of the things. And for those playing along at home, all the files on 400 floppy discs will fit quite comfortable on precisely ONE CD. Or a USB thumb drive that's smaller than my thumbnail.

Progress IS fantastic. CDs are better. Floppy discs take up a ton of space. It's hard to find things on tapes. But the reminder of how the passage of time can so swiftly turn the everyday into the antique, or worse still, the relic, is just scary.

There's no reason why it should be. As I've occasionally said in the past, there's every reason to believe that there is nothing to fear about getting old. Or at least, older. After all, you pick up some nice memories along the way.