The public library comes through again

VHS conversion station in the iLab at Wescott Library in Dakota County MN

The “hot” technology of the mid-1980s was the VHS camcorder. At least it was for me as the father of a baby son whose grandparents lived halfway across the world and who I felt needed to experience the joy of his arrival. Using a camcorder I purchased in Hong Kong, I taped my son Brady’s antics and mailed a tape back each month from my home in Saudi Arabia to his grandpas and grandmas in Iowa.

Over the five years I taught for ARAMCO schools, I accumulated over two dozen VHS tapes. For the past 30 years or so, they have quietly languished in a box buried in a closet. But I ran across them a few days ago and felt both curious about what they contained and guilty for not making them accessible to others.

I knew that to convert these tapes to a digital format, I would need a VHS player, conversion software, and a place to store the digital conversions. It’s been a while since I’ve owned a VHS tape player. I don’t own the conversion software. I’d need a computer with fairly fast processing power to do the job as well. 

As a supervisor for many years, my first inclination was to find someone else to do the work for me. A quick stop at a local business that does such work eliminated this option. They wanted $30 a tape to make the conversion (Hmmmm, $30 x 30 tapes - there goes my wine budget for this month.) I could buy the equipment for a third of that cost and, being retired, my hourly pay rate is zero.

Next I stopped back in my old tech department at the school district. None of the staff there remembered us having the equipment to convert tapes (although a couple kind folks offered to let me borrow the VHS tape players they still owned.) My sister also remembers a VHS player among the lovely stuff inherited from one of our aunts. 

I had decided to pick up this old VCR player on my next visit to my sisters when a memory of something I had read tickled my mind. Don’t our public libraries now advertise “makerspaces” for anyone to use and might they not include VHS conversion equipment?

A call to the Dakota County Library office confirmed that a number of branches did indeed have this equipment and I was walked through the online scheduling website. So yesterday, I had an “iLab” to myself nearly all afternoon. 

The conversion process could not have gone better: the library staff made sure the equipment was up and running; they gave me a quick verbal tutorial on the Roxio software; and they gave me a notebook of simple, step-by-step instructions for doing the work. I converted my first two tapes and had the digital copies uploaded to my GoogleDrive in just a couple hours. Hours pleasantly spent watching my then two-month-old son learn to smile…

Not to sound grim, but one of my goals is to leave as few tasks for my children to do as possible after I go to the great recliner in the sky. This includes digitizing these videos and paper photographs. Thankfully the public libraries around here recognize the need for services that go beyond checking out print books and having a place to read a magazine*. 

Once again, I am proud to have been in the library profession.

* I’ve written before about Libby being a fantastic public library resource for ebooks.

Waste not; waist more

Each year, 108 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. Shockingly, nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted.  Feeding America website

From 1999 –2000 through 2017 –March 2020, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. (NHANES, 2021)

Hmmmm, coincidence? I don’t think so. Let me explain.

As a child, my parents always admonished me to “clean my plate.” The consequence of not doing so was being denied dessert - which was often lime Jello with embedded suspended canned fruit. Yum. Who wouldn’t force down those last couple of bites of creamed chipped beef on toast or liver and onions?.

As an adult, it is more often my conscience that guilts me into joining the clean plate club. Combined with echoes of my grandmother’s statement “think of all those starving children in China,” a plethora of articles about food waste/food insecurity in this country guilt me into not wasting food. 

And how does one not waste food? By eating it, of course.

I certainly do my best to minimize putting any edibles in the trash. I buy minimum quantities of perishable foods, shop relatively often, use my fridge and freezer for leftovers, and happily eat those leftovers for lunch the next day. The odd stale slice of bread gets tossed into the backyard beneath the birdfeeder, defying the HOA rule not to feed wildlife. (Damn squirrels!)

Oversized restaurant meals get divided in half. I eat one and take the other home in a doggie box. My friend and I often share a meal or at least a salad. And then there is sometimes a “seniors” menu with smaller costs and serving sizes. Funny that no one IDs me anymore about qualifying.

But really, what does one do with those last couple teaspoons of chili, quarter cup of peas, or last slice of garlic bread?

The only PC thing to do is eat up. Especially if only a couple tablespoons of ice cream remain in the bottom of the carton. And buy pants with an expandable waistband.

From Strength to Strength - an important read

I rarely review books in this blog, but Brook’s From Strength to Strength informed and moved me. I only wish I had read it 10 or 20 years ago. (Might have been tough since it was just recently published.)

Like many folks who had a successful career with some degree of public recognition, I still find myself at a bit of a loss now in retirement. While I get a great deal of satisfaction from volunteering, traveling, participating in service and interest groups, and having time with family, I often miss work and my side gigs of professional speaking and writing. I believe my last conference speaking gig was March of 2020, the very month the COVID virus began shutting down a lot of activity. My last professional article was published in June of 2019. I stopped writing my last column in 2015 after 20 years of continuous publication.

Better a “has been” than a “never was”, I have consoled myself. But it is sometimes cold comfort.

Brook’s book is written for what he calls “strivers” - those who pushed themselves to be successful in their careers, but then find themselves becoming less successful as they move past middle age. This is a must read for anyone who has had a job with responsibility and growth - for anyone who has strived at a career. *

The author compellingly argues we lose our "fluid" intelligence (creativity) quite early and then must figure out how to change to using our "crystalized" intelligence (wisdom). Using research, religious and philosophical references, and practical advice, Brooks explains how to move from concrete rewards like money, notoriety, and career advancement to the psychological rewards of inner peace, better interpersonal relationships, and one’s roles as a mentor/teacher, recognizing this “jump” is not an easy one.

On reflection, I believe I was personally transforming long before retirement, always valuing family, friends and recreation, not just work and the rewards it brought. I suspect my “jump” was not as far as it would be for many.

The book doesn’t offer any easy solutions to making this transition nor give concrete examples of people who successfully changed, but it was helpful to me to read the theory and learn that my situation is far from uncommon.

Still processing its message, but I encourage anyone struggling to find a new meaning in retirement to read it as well.

*The book on Goodreads has also collected a number of negative reviews, with an “elite” audience often cited as a criticism. Be warned.