Sept. 15, 2002 ~ The date on the tape
is January 11, 1995. I looked high and low for "Sliding Doors," which is what I really wanted to see, but that tape is elusive. While engrossed in the search, I found the one labeled "Merle, Alex and Pandy." Long gone cats. So I grumbled and moaned and pretty much whined to the point of embarrassment over the fact that I couldn't find "Sliding Doors," then I said (prefaced by a loud sigh) "I guess I'll just have to watch this Dead Cats tape." Followed by another self-pitying sigh. "Huh?" said College Boy. So I explained that it listed the names of cats who have passed on, hence the name "Dead Cats."
I popped the tape into the VCR and saw the date on the screen. Pause. What will I find here? Did I ever even watch this one? 1995 was not a good year for us. The tape rolled on. The first image was a 16-year-old Soldier Boy, a boy with actual hair. He's been cutting his hair in a military-type cut for a number of years now, and it was so nice to see hair on his head once again. He doesn't like to be videotaped, nor does he like to be photographed, so I had to be sneaky. Then there was lots of footage of the horses. How young they looked! Sugar's brown patches were dark brown; now they are laced with white, the horsey equivalent of going gray. Dakotah was shiny and handsome, and Bucky... Bucky Bear was a baby! Eight months old, if I counted right. He looked every bit like the teenage horse he was. His tail and mane hadn't reached their full length, and he was still in that "doggy" stage. For the first two or three years of his life, Bucky thought I was his other Mommy, and he followed me everywhere, just like an obedient puppy dog. So naturally, when I showed up with the camera, here he came. There are lots of silly images, close-ups of the horses and cows eating. Cows, some of them now gone.
Beulah was there; she died later that year, while we were out of town. Alex, one of the world's cutest black cats, was there, as was Pandy, our Maine Coon. Merle, Pepper's brother, stretched out on my bed, meowing prettily for the camera. Sweet, sweet babies, now long gone. Victims of bobcats, coyotes, unknown causes.
There was Phoebe, my sweet red Chow, smiling and bouncing and waving her tail. Ducks, lots and lots of ducks, and more chickens than I could count. The hens were leftovers from an Ag project Soldier Boy had for school.
I was doing the filming, and it was a terrible tape. It was one of the first times I'd ever used the camera. It belonged to my brother then, and he had just been for a visit. For some reason I will never understand, he decided that I needed to borrow his camera. Said I should film the contents of my house for insurance purposes, then stick the tape in our safe deposit box. In case anything ever happened. The thing is, I HATE to borrow things. Almost will not do it, no matter what. I'd rather eat nails. If the item is something small and easily replaced, fine. But something expensive, no way. My rule is I don't borrow it unless I'm willing to replace it if it breaks. So I didn't want the thing. Didn't want to know how to use it. He insisted on showing me. Said he wouldn't leave until I learned the ropes, and agreed to keep the camera for awhile. Just until his next visit.
Well, that camera being here, it bugged me. A lot. I wanted him to take it back! But he wouldn't, not until Thanksgiving, and not until I showed him the tape I made, and proved that I knew how to use the thing. He wasn't normally so bossy, but he was insistent about this one thing.
It was weird, seeing all those long ago images. Trees were smaller. The apple tree still lived. Grass still grew in the horses' pen, and we still had pine forests.
In December, the wreck. We later had to clean out my brother's apartment and his pro shop, too. There among all the bowling paraphanalia was that video camera. What had been borrowed, against my will, was now mine... against my will.
In that safe deposit box in the bank, along with the updated inventory of the contents of our house, is a copy of a videotape of that last Thanksgiving... the last time I saw my brother. Because I was still showing him that I knew how to use the stupid camera, I aimed it right at him and caught him being silly, acting goofy, just like always. It's the only tape I made of him. Well, of course we thought we had forever.
So I have sneaked around, sometimes, and taken a grumpy Soldier Boy's picture and videotaped him from a distance, because you just never know.
Didn't we all think we had forever?
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