I’ve always found it fascinating how home movies can take you back in time and teach you stuff about your family that you never knew before. When I went back to my parents place on Sunday night my mom and dad were downstairs watching old home movies. The movies were from the time my dad was 11 till about 17. The first one I saw was my dad, uncle, grandfather and grandmother working on a Tobacco farm. I knew that my father use to live on a Tobacco farm, that wasn’t news, what was interesting was that my grandmother was in it. I never knew my grandmother. She died of cancer years before I was born and I don’t know a lot about her. My step-grandmother is the only grandmother I’ve known on my dad’s side of the family so she seems like my real grandmother. By watching her in these home movies I felt like I was getting to know her. I watched as she worked in Tobacco, travelled in Belgium, danced at weddings (on the second home movie), played and swam at our cottage. I still don’t really know her since I will never be able to hear her speak (the camera they used didn’t record sound) or get to sit and talk with her but in a way I think I know her a little better than I did before seeing the movies.