Cassette tapes

Yes, admittedly records are hip again. I will probably never be able to get rid of my record collection. Now, my eyes have wandered over to my tape cassettes. Perhaps they can be given the heave-ho. No, now cassette tapes are hip again. I can understand, old cassette tapes, especially the home made ones, can be full of untapped mysteries. Who knows what is on them? Yes the label may say the Kinks, but how do we know the cassette is nothing but the Kinks? How do we know I didn't talk into the microphone at the end? Perhaps Aunt Lizzie sneezes at the end. The only recording of Aunt Lizzie still extant.

It can be fun to play old cassettes. Most of them are still playable. It was the first medium where average people could make their own mixes. The more adventurous of us also used the microphone to tape voices, our cars and our pets. Tapes from the radio. Tapes from our singles collection. Tapes from television shows.  I just discovered I had a tape of a radio show dedicated to the life of Ernest Hemingway which featured Lil Abner's Al Capp giving a critique on the man. Theoretically I could transfer them all to CD but the amount of work for a non-retired man is too great. Cassette tapes are part of  the flotsam and jetsam sum of our lives. They may be irrelevant but they are our flotsam and jetsam. 

Editor's note: I just found the Hemingway show on YouTube. Maybe I can give some of my cassettes the heave-ho after all.