Cairns home movies circa 1962-1972 (watch video)

Mom and me outside our house in Erie, maybe 1965.

Once upon a time, we used to watch old 8mm home movies in Grandma and Grandpa Cairns’s house when they lived on East 37th in Erie, PA. Grandpa set up the screen on one side of the basement and on the other leveled the projector atop an antique radio.

There’s a scene of Dad carrying me out of that house when I was a baby (may not be in this set), and I distinctly recall, while watching it many years later, what high hopes he must have had for his baby boy, and what a disappointment I had become.

That’s not because he ever said anything like that, but because of what I was enduring at that time and how starkly it contrasted with those images.

If he can see me now (and I think he can, I talk to him frequently), I don’t think he’d be disappointed. I suspect he understands more in eternal hindsight than I ever will in this life.

I think we are too hard on ourselves in this life, but that doesn’t stop us, does it?

Cairns Family Memories Vol II circa 1962-72 with period soundtrack (~2 hrs)

Cairns Family Memories Vol II circa 1962-72 with period soundtrack. These films were shot on 8mm film circa 1962-72 by Thomas Graham Cairns, my grandfather. It includes the families of Ken Cairns, Charles Weston Cairns, and Dottie Cairns. Tom Tom Cairns (Ken's son) digitized them. I added some period vintage sounds. The last 10 minutes or so have no sound yet. Someday it would be fun to spend some time matching appropriate sounds to each event.

[2014-03-02]

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