Found Footage Films

I was organizing my digital files recently and found these lovely stills from several reels of 8mm home movies that I purchased from that evil, sordid online auction website that has managed to suck down a good share of my hard-earned cash and shall go nameless because it is a sinister and vile enterprise. OK, sometimes I get addicted to said website and must pull myself back into the light, there I said it.
Now these home movies are of people I don't know. Most have probably gone to that cutting room floor in the sky. I am simply riveted by the happy scenes of familial bliss and end up asking myself a litany of questions. Who were these people? What misfortune, if there was any to speak of, befell these folks who's happy, perhaps happiest, moments ended up in an online auction to be purchased by this random-memory fetishist? What became of them? These are all currently unknowable questions. The only thing I know is that they are beautiful. They dance, smile, and twirl in their Kodacolor time capsules and in doing so have become part of the enduring history of everyday 20th-century American life. I say enduring because these folks managed to document their existence in a medium that will actually last, unlike the ephemeral optical discs and magnetic tapes that we use today. Our technology is impressive, but woefully too temporary to last the way celluloid, vinyl, and paper does. The key to keeping your digital information alive is to backup frequently, make redundant copies of data in multiple formats and media and of course dumping it into vast databases on the Net helps. Who says you can't live forever!