26 to 50: 1984

[vanillafluffy]

I started the year training for a job doing soldering/assembly. I liked doing that kind of thing; my familiarity with tools in general carried over to fiddling with small parts and doing minute adjustments. The company was an hour south in Palm Bay at started at 7 AM. (I was younger then, and hardier.) I made enough money at that job to buy a VCR. Luckily, I chose VHS (not Beta!), although in those days, a VCR had a wired remote, a top-loading deck and a "cheap" one was $400. In its defense, that first VCR lasted 10 years!

I stayed there til August, when I got wind of a job doing the same thing in Cape Canaveral, which was a third the distance from home AND paid even better. I won a football pool at the second job, which netted me enough money to buy my own Sears electric typewriter. It was self-correcting and it had a one-line electronic memory. At the time, that was a Big Deal.

I'm trying to recall what else was going on at the time...nothing leaps to mind, although I remember that time fondly. I was writing, I had money coming in and only token rent payments to Dad going out. Life was good.


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Comments

[joker-satx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember my first VCR. Top loading VHS. Emerson. It lasted this side of forever.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Mine was a Quasar, I think. It was hooked up to a Magnavox TV which also had an impressive 15-year life span, although it developed an odd little idiocyncracy---it would turn itself off and on. At first, it only happened occasionally. Then, maybe once a week, then daily, every 20 minutes or so---until it became too annoying to live with and I found a cheapo set somewhere. That old technology was built to last!

[cbtreks.livejournal.com]

I remember those top-loading VCRs! Had completely forgotten about them before you mentioned it.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

To paraphrase the late, great George Carlin, my job is to remind you of those funny things you forgot about, or didn't realize they were funny in the first place.



Except, of course, no one's paying me for it, so it's a labor of love....

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

My first VCR (purchased from Montgomery Ward, where I was working) was a 4-Head Panasonic front-loader about 20" wide and 6" high/thick. Cost me $469, got a shit-ton of use and lasted damn-near 17 years.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Wow. I shopped around to get mine, but finding blank tapes was a real bitch for the longest time. At first, they were $7 apiece, and I remember being overjoyed when I found a place that had them for $5 each. I boucht them by the case! And was happier still when the price clubs brought the cost down to $3. I've got a metric shitload of them recorded---all kinds of stuff, TV series and god-only-knows what-all---not to mention factory tapes, mostly inherited from Peter.

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

Heh! Yeah, I remember buying VHS tapes by the case. 'Course I taped a lot of tv series back then...

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Likewise! Now if I could just figure out how to zap them onto DVDs...'cause even if I could afford boxed sets, they don't HAVE them for The Burning Zone, Vengeance Unlimited, Misfits of Science, Wildside!, etc. Picket Fence and Chicago Hope might make it onto DVD eventually, but again, money.

[foreverhermit.livejournal.com]

*nods*

That, and a bunch of video footage of my kids when they were babies, is the reason I finally shelled out $150 for a VHS -> DVD recorder.

[gwylliondream.livejournal.com]

I got my first VCR at Lechmere! Loooooong out of business! What a hoot!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

My second VCR---which was a cheap piece of crap that I think lasted all of two years---came from the now defunct Zayre's. My current one was a Christmas present around 2000-01---I honestly can't recall---and I think the reason it's lasted as long as it has is, I get my movies on DVD and mostly record on DVR. I've probably used it twice in the last six months.