New old photos, New old video!

I’ve had two big happenings today in the world of my digital family archives. First, due to a mounting sense of panic about my computer, I have been unable to back up for 3 weeks, due to the large size of several digital videos I imported, I have begun the work of editing the videos, so that I can export it to DVD, and or the internet. First on my list was the circa 1969 soundless film made by an old friend of my parents. He gave the film to another friend, who copied it to several VHS tapes, one of which was given to my mom. I imported it from my VHS player, through my digital video camera into the computer and edited it in iMovie. It contains several different scenes:

1. My parents among about 25 other hippie teens as they cavort in West Hudson Park in Kearny, NJ, including laying themselves out on a grassy hill in the shape of a peace sign, and other dancing around. (part of which was intended to be set to the theme Hey Hey, We’re the Monkees) as they kids came bounding over a hill top.
2. A skit where two guys are approached by a pusher, score some weed, sneak off to enjoy it, are approached by a cop, who proceeds to get high with them before they all skip off arm in arm.
3. A musical or theatre troupe maybe in Central Park.
4. My mom and a friend waving good bye to their friends who are on the way to Woodstock, August 15, 1969, followed by their footage of arriving at Woodstock and some scenes of the crowd before a shot of people bathing in a pond at the concert.
5. A shot of Fillmore East
6. A 6 1/2 minute video of my Dad’s band, Black Forest Rhodes performing at Rutgers Newark Campus, which I just uploaded to YouTube.

I’m planning to post some more parts of the video to YouTube, so I can share them without using up all my bandwidth, because I think they are cool vintage films that a lot more people might enjoy seeing. I was in the midst of messing around with the video, trying to get it exported to the correct format when I received an email from Leonard, one of my Wooling cousins. He has been so generous with his photos and especially in taking the time to scan them and share them with the whole family. This last set (of 499 photos) is no exception. Although many of the people are only relatives of mine through distant relations and by marriage, it’s still an amazing collection, and one I hope to help Leonard share with more people. Here are some samples:

I know these pictures are very low quality – it’s something I’m still working on improving. I have discovered that switching my blogs over to WordPress hosting was a big mistake, and I’m still in the process of learning how to move them again, but in a way that would allow me to log in once yet still access both blogs while hosting myself. I’m afraid I’ll mess something up and lose a lot of my work, so I dread climbing up yet another steep and risky learning curve. Still, it was a day of progress with the family archives, so I’m happy about that.