Hana Hou Pt. 2
Chapt. 8
Vox Humana
Dear Mom,
I found this book at the best little bookstore on Kauai. Heck, it might be the only bookstore around here worthy of the title. Taylor Camp was a hippie community not far from where we live today.
When I glanced through it, I thought of you and Dad. It made me smile to think that at one time, in her feckless youth, my own mother might have been such a free spirit as these colorful characters were, living life and making love in treehouses like happy monkeys and singing Kumbaya-ish tunes off-key with herbally induced smiles on unwashed faces.
I love you, Mom, and I shall demonstrate said affection by refraining from specifying exactly which birthday this little gift commemorates.
I know I was at times a great challenge for you and Dad. However, this book reminded me of what you probably put your own parents through, and so I shall excuse myself with the thought that what goes around comes around. Karmic payback, if you will.
Kimmy likes the book (I have my own copy) and wants to hear of your own youthful adventures, but I ask you to not give her any such ideas until she's a little older. I consider myself lucky that there are no stunt car drivers around these parts. She's such a sweet kid. She keeps hinting around that she would like a younger sibling and that she would be happy to help take care of him or her.
Who knows. I know that time for such things is going to be running out for me, and part of me is regretful that I did not have a child when he or she could have brought joy to Dad. Kimmy will be going off to college soon enough, so if something like that should happen, it would be Auntie Jane helping out.
Life has been so far resistant to planning. I would never have expected to find myself considering Kauai to be home, but it is. I'm still not sure what to do with my loft in Boston; as long as you or Quinn have use for it, I'll hold on to it. Who knows, perhaps Kimmy will go to college there. For now, it's good to have a place to go to when I visit you and Quinn's family.
Speaking of visits, we're all looking forward to seeing you here. Kimmy wants you to have her room and is planning to move into…are you sitting down? A freaking treehouse in the back yard. She got the idea from this book.
Little Miss Smartypants says you can stay in the treehouse if you want but I think the rope ladder she has planned might be a challenge for you. She plans to call it the Helen and Jacob Morgendorffer Center for the Meditative Arts.
Naturally Auntie Jane thinks it's a great idea and the two of them are scrounging wooden pallets for framing materials, and there's plenty of timber bamboo here. Hopefully it won't be too much of an eyesore because it'll be right outside the kitchen window.
Sorry for this rambling missive. Hope you have a very happy birthday. Give our love to Quinn and her family.
"So the Kauai Museum agreed to provide a home for my musical archiving project, and that led to a discussion of my helping to catalog and organize a recently donated collection of disc recordings from the estate of a westside television and radio repairman."
Jane poured coffee for her brother. "Disc recordings? You mean vinyl records, right?" She reached for another slice of birdseed toast.
Trent shook his head. "Not exactly. These aren't mass produced records like that. Before they had digital audio media, they had tape recorders like my old Nagra, and before that, wire recorders that recorded sound on a moving spool of magnetic wire. And before World War II, they had disc recorders that recorded onto aluminum discs coated in a layer of shellac. You could play them on regular record players but they were kind of fragile."
Daria spread homemade lilikoi jelly on her birdseed toast. "So this repairman recorded local musicians in the 1930's?"
"Musicians, some audio letters that were exchanged with people in California, a few special occasions. One was a song recorded for a group of boys who had enlisted in the US Army. Many of the recordings were left in the care of the gentleman who made them, since people felt that they were important. A few that were given to the people actually recorded turned up in other private collections, and the museum has found itself in possession of almost a hundred such discs."
Daria was fascinated. These would be a glimpse into a past world that was rarely documented in this way. "Are they in good condition?"
"Mostly," Trent nodded. "They're so easily broken that the recordist made flat wooden boxes for each disc, and included notes with each one. They don't have labels like regular records, and they have two holes- one in the middle, and another off to the side for a driving pin. So they look different, with a handwritten title in the middle. It's really kind of a treasure trove."
"So they want you to copy them as digital files and write a description of each? The way you did your own field recordings?" Jane asked.
"Yeah. They're offering an honorarium, and asking if I want to be the audio media curator. I could write a grant proposal for funding, and I could actually draw a salary."
"Do we need the money?" Daria asked.
"Not really, but it would give the work credibility and make it easier to get outside support. The museum agreed, and they gave me a budget to order the equipment needed to transcribe the recordings." Trent grinned. "I even have a couple of students from Kauai Community College lined up to actually do the transcriptions, since I don't want those discs to leave the museum. I'll review the files from home and set up a database linked to the recordings. There are several Docents at the museum that are fluent in Japanese, Ilocano and Tagalog, since many of the recordings are in those languages."
"You da Man," smirked Jane. "When the hell did you become a responsible adult?"
"I could help with the grant proposals," Daria offered.
"That would be cool," agreed Trent.
Jane got up to clear the dishes. "Don't limit yourself to audio recordings only. I know lots of people are recording oral histories on video. You could have a website where people could upload files, kind of like a cultural version of YouTube, or maybe something like a Wiki-museum."
Daria raised an eyebrow. "Damn good idea, Jane." There are so many stories out there…I bet Studs Terkel would have approved.