Tapes
September 5, 2009
Don’t know why I felt inspired to get into this now. The box full of old audio tape cassettes had not been touched since about 1994. Maybe it was because a couple weeks ago I consolidated all the audio tapes and CDs into one stack of boxes, instead of being mixed in with videos and other type of media.
I have a cardboard shoebox to hold my CDs, which isn’t big enough for all of them. The first thing I did was do a fast sort and flip through the CD cases looking for ones that I am ready to let go of. Enough were pulled out that I can now fit all my CDs in the box, and there is room for about five more. This was a good practice run for the next step.
Audio tapes. Not sure how many I had, maybe around 200. I went through them all without listening to them – only going by the label on each tape. If I start playing them I’ll never finish. They were sorted into three piles:
1. Must Keep
Space for these is limited to a storage case I have that has slots for 30 cassettes. I doubt that there will be any new tapes added at this point. From now on if I buy a new tape, an old one will have to be discarded.
2. Donations
These are original store-bought music albums on tape that I can part with. Mostly 1980’s rock and pop bands. It didn’t feel right to donate or sell a copy of a tape with a handwritten label – only originals.
3. Other
The biggest group. Copies made of vinyl albums (don’t have the vinyl anymore, or a turntable). Things I want to listen to before deciding. Music tapes given to me by people I don’t know anymore. Tapes that were not labelled.
The sorting was all I did that day. The three piles stayed that way until trash day this week. On trash day right before taking it out I will usually look quickly through my piles to find at least one thing that I can throw away. This time I looked at my “Other” pile of tapes. I sat down with this one pile again and ruthlessly cut it down to only 10 tapes. All the rest went right into the trash. There is probably a way to recycle them, but right now I don’t have the energy to find out the “right” way to discard tapes.
