Okay, this isn’t technically music anymore, but there are still a few more cassette tapes.

At least, I think there isn’t any more music on cassettes. But… okay, one of the remaining cassette tapes is from my father’s memorial service. Somewhere around here I also have the printed Order of Service, and I thought that would be useful to have when editing the tape, so I went looking for it.

I haven’t found it yet, and in fact got one of my sisters to send me a copy, but while I was searching I did find four VHS tapes of family video. I thought I’d finished with all our VHS months ago; I had noticed the absence of one of these and assumed I must have loaned it to one of my sisters or in-laws, didn’t remember I’d ever had the other three.

Yet here they are.

So maybe there are more audio tapes lurking out there somewhere, too.

But meanwhile, another one bites the dust: a taped letter from the guy who originally sent those three “various artists” tapes was digitized yesterday. Ninety minutes of chitchat about life, music, his job, discount stores, and whatnot. It includes some explanation of why he chose the songs he did for the first two tapes.

That was the third of three, chronologically. The second of the three was today’s project. The last taped letter is done.

Interesting how my correspondent’s mood audibly changed from one letter to the next — the first was recorded when he was having a very rough time (medical and employment issues, a friend’s death), and the others (at roughly monthly intervals) were produced when things were improving pretty rapidly — successful surgery, quick healing, new job, etc. And you can tell the letters apart merely by the tone of his voice; the first is slow and gloomy, the next is better but still a bit down, and the third is generally upbeat.

It’s kind of funny hearing some of the discussions more than twenty years later. He talks about Wil Wheaton’s departure from ST:TNG, about the recent development of this new blue laser that may someday produce much more information-dense CDs and DVDs, etc.

Ten more cassette tapes remain: my father’s memorial service, a convention panel from 1989, and two four-cassette anthologies.