June 1982 ?
I was 19 years old that summer. I had a Panasonic boombox that I carried with me everywhere. One night around dinner time, I decided that I would set the boombox on the counter in the kitchen and record the family talking.
I think that even then, I knew that someday, these old tapes would not only be treasured snapshots of a brief moment-in-time from long ago, but they might also serve a purpose as proof of the insanity in our house - you know, in case any of us kids ended up in therapy as adults.
Yes, there was a lot of yelling in that house. This seemed to be the only form of communication that anyone understood. When I think about my family before I moved out of my parents house, this audio clip is what I think of. All of my sisters were children, ages 13, 9 and 5. My old man was 42 and my mother was 39.
Once I moved to Florida in 1988, I missed out on many years of the changes that happened in my family. I was 1250 miles away, and I only knew what was told to me over the phone - whether it was the truth or not.
Family dinner