I've always thought that my birthday isn't all that important to me, but talking to the girlfriend last night I realized I carry the memory of some lousy birthday incidents from my teenage years---and there are probably more I don't recall. One of THOSE, in fact, I know about only because one of my gifts was a little portable cassette recorder, into which I popped the short sample tape that came with it and thus with which I recorded the remainder of the birthday session. Found it years later---it's a bizarre archival item.
I still have old answering machine tapes from my 20's and early 30's, too---some day I'll sit down and play some of 'em. Many dead people will be featured.
Anybody else have tapes of the dead?