Beneath the Wraps

                 “ The land never dies ” is the last line spoken Lynn Redgrave ’ s character, Charlotte to her grandson in the 1978 mini-series “ Centennial ” .  The series is a time period piece about settlers in Colorado during the 1700 ’ s.  Roland had watched the movie shortly after watching a documentary featuring the rise and fall of Blockbuster video.  https://www.netflix.com/title/81354557   I remember Blockbuster.   I remember going to the video store to find videos when they were available on both VHS and Beta.   I remember the days long before Redbox and Nextflix.   I had never thought of the details or evolution.   I remember going for VHS – I don ’ t remember ever having checked out DVDs.   But there is still evidently one location in which renting DVDs is still a commodity.    https://www.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-survives-in-bend-oregon-2018-8 Bend, Oregon is home t...

            The first time I remember meeting Ben (not his actual name) was at one of the schools.   There was concern about safety with gang violence and other criminal activity.   After the presentation there was a QA session and Ben provided three phone numbers to call.   One was the local police department, one was for the Sheriff’s office and the last one he gave he said was his personal number.   I had programmed all three into my phone but had only used one and never the other two. Ben had run for office as the Sheriff head cheese – which was not the official title but he had worked under the Sheriff head cheese not as a deputy but an acting sheriff and had run against the head cheese I don’t know how many times.   He was running the year I dragged my husband to an adjoining neighborhood to support his campaign.   I remember liking his facebook page which I guess at the time qualified me as an automatic member of ...

          When Jenna told me her assignment was on camera history, I smiled as I had recently touched on that same subject in class discussion post that I briefly mention here .   I ended up with this thought on digital cameras versus film:        " The digital camera was made available to the public in 1988 (Ternholm, 2007).  Before the start of the 21st Century,  I had known several people who had tried to sway me into the perks of having/owning digital.  I don't remember all the reasons I had for sticking with my 35mm and rolls of film, but one of the reasons was because I had convinced myself that the picture quality was better from the film than the digital results.         "It wasn't until our family had an opportunity of hosting a foreign exchange student that I was "swayed" to the perks that a digital camera could provide.  My "so...

            After we had moved my mom into assisted living, we gutted out her house and set aside things for ourselves and the rest for a massive yard sale.   Corey had returned from Las Vegas to claime what was his and took a lot of what had once been hers.  He said he wanted all the photos.   There were many that I wanted to scan so that I could have digital copies, but I really didn't have the room for all of the hard photographs.   Corey and Joh had more room than any of my mother's other children.             It was in September of this year that Corey and Joh came to Oregon for a brief visit.   Unfortunately, when they returned home to their house in Las Vegas, they learned that several parts of the house had received water damage due to a flood caused by a broken pipe.   They have since undergone renovation and have been forced t...