Groking Ephemera

They say memories fade. I'm realizing this in new ways as I unearth shoeboxes filled with shards of history preserved on dead formats... reels of mysterious 8mm film, brittle paper envelopes stuffed with curling orange negatives that I take to be from 110 & 120 cartridge film. They seem to be 16 & 35mm stock respectively but the perfs & framesizes are odd. I think they're all that's left of countless 'Kodak moments' snapped on long lost instamatics. Eyeballing the negatives is intriguing. There seem to be photos from the 1964 NY World's Fair, countless family moments I can't make out, and heaven knows what else.
I want to reclaim these fading ...and curling... memories, but I don't yet have a clue how. I've only begun my search for saving old formats, but the results aren't promising so far. Oh well, these things sat & mouldered in shoeboxes for decades, I guess they can wait a little longer until I can figure how to best restore them.
Too bad the Library of Congress (or any other country's archivists) don't have an online how-to for home restoration/preservation of personal history. If they do, I have yet to find it.

the mind's attic

I had the radio on as a background, when one of the non-news features mentioned an exhibit at a local museum that percolated some long forgotten memories ...like methane from the landfill of my mind. :) I don't know how long this link will remain active, but it's a retrospective of a "trolley park" ... a throwback to the days before suburbia, when city dwellers would take public transportation to the end of the line - and a bucolic recreation area in "the country" ...remember, this was pre-suburbs. Norumbega Park was a recreation area west of Boston along the Charles River. I remember as a child that it seemed like taking a trip to Maine. Of course, when you're in the early single digits, time & distance are quite different things. I now realize that this place is inside Rt 128 - which rings Boston at a roughly 10 mile radius.
I think the area had been bulldozed by the time I was 6. It's now industrial land near where I-90 meets Rt 128. But it had existed from the late 1800s. I'm a bit surprised to find the name brought back hazy memories long & deeply buried. While I was born far too late to recognize or appreciate the history around me, it brings home the lesson on how change relentlessly continues. Not inherently for better or worse... just for different.
...enough navel gazing Head - UP. Eyes - AHEAD. ;)

More foam on the sea of information

The Red Sox move on to game 7 of the ALCS. I wanted to watch game 6, but was too superstitious. Every game I watch goes badly. No - every game I follow... whether on TV, radio, or even SMS updates! So I go into info exile until fate has been set. I know it's foolish superstition, but it seems to be working, so I'm in no hurry to let reason prevail.