Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for September 08, 2023

Well, they’re going to be busy through the weekend!

The Great Unboxing Charlie Brown!

One time I was 31 years old.

So they’ve lived in this house for 30 years? How long have they been married? I’m never really sure just how old they’re supposed to be.

You really don’t need your utility bills from 1995.

The moral of the story is—-If you’re going to keep things in a box in the attic, label the box so you’ll know at a glance what’s inside.

Yes, there may be something on the bottom of an unlikely boxes that you have been wondering about. True story: found out blue Ray dvd and glass wok cover under a art piece. My husband swore that the movers stole the dvd player.

I hope I’m not ruining tomorrow’s strip!

But here’s one from the EARLY days: 6/20/1995 8^ )

And then later: 5/31/3016 then scroll thru the next 3 days

Statue of limitations on financial records?

I wonder what could be on the tape….

There are businesses that will transfer your vhs tapes to dvd

Well, fortunately our child taped over our naughty video to have a ‘very special afterschool special’ she could share with her friends.

Cleaning out my father’s house I found tax returns going back to the year my parents married. I sort of wish that I’d kept the first returns that listed my brother and myself.

Memories! Misty water-colored memories…

After my mother died, I was going through a small filing cabinet which was stuffed full of old paperwork. I found blank checks from bank accounts she and my dad closed 30-35 years previously.

They say two moves are the same as one fire and like a wildfire everything regenerates.

Those baby pictures are in there somewhere.

Hmmm financial records and such in boxes in the garage….shades of Joe Biden……

So… what sort of VHS home movies were ya’ll making? Say no more… nudge nudge

Janis has NO sense of humor.

I had a great uncle, whom I’d never met, who died in his 50’s. He never married and had supported his parents for years. My mother said he would spend hours in his room typing. When he died, my grandmother and great aunts just tossed his writing. I have been curious as to what it was about.

I have been involved in 4 relatives house clean outs and they all started with sales and giveaways and then dumpsters, sometimes more then one dumpsters, if you think someone will treasure your belongings you are wrong.

We’ve heard of those “special” videotapes before.

No. You don’t need it! If you haven’t opened that box in several years, and you don’t know what’s inside of it, you’re just wasting time! No one cares what your phone or gas bill was in 1980, 1995, 2006 or even 2015! Tax returns? To the shredder!

When my dad died, we found three tall filing cabinets in the basement, filled with every cancelled check and register since he got out of the Army Air Corps 1946!

We thought we were going to move last year; packed a bunch of stuff up & put it in the basement.

Didn’t move.

Floor drain backed up.

Had to pitch all the VHS tapes.

Still haven’t gotten around to unhooking the player.

The good news? The DVDs were on top – and so were the βeta® tapes.

I still have a VHS player. Clock doesn’t work on it anymore, but it still plays tapes. At least it did last time I used it 5 years ago.

When I got rid of stuff, I wish I had made a list of it all to keep me from trying to find it again. Also just having a note that something (fond memory related) existed is often as good as keeping the thing.

“My boxes! My boxes! Don’t let them take my boxes!”

I put after tax money in an IRA in the 1970’s. When I started to take RMD’s in 2011, I found the 1976 form 8606. Without that old 8606, I would have had to pay taxes on some money that had already been taxed.

This will be a long arc.

My wife has finally realized that we don’t need 40 yo financial records or check stubs.

Those boxes came from the attic. Any VHS tapes in them have long since been destroyed. Even stored under ideal conditions:“Did you know tape-eating bacteria exists? It’s true, not even your tape technology is invincible from bacteria, dust, oxide shedding, and deterioration. But when do you need to start worrying about such problems with your VHS tapes? On average, tapes degrade 10-20% over 10 to 25 years.”

How many of you missed the bit about the VCR tapes? Think “home movies.”

Yeah, there are folks who lived to regret dumping un-erased tapes.

What about all of the memories of our lives dear?

Not the accounts! She was triggered by “VHS” … wedding videos and when children were young etc.