Nowadays, people can share their home videos to grandparents, friends and the entire world—via social media—almost instantly. But it was not always so. Unless someone goes through the effort of converting their old home videos into a digital format, the films are often lost, discarded or forgotten.
Former resident Jim Heid, who grew up on Salem Drive in the 1970s and graduated in 1978, not only preserved his home videos—he digitized them and wants to share them with the world.
So in the spirit of Independence Day, and in the absence of a community celebration this year, please enjoy three of Heid’s home videos from Mt. Lebanon’s Fourth of Julys gone by.
1955
“A short 16mm home-movie shot by my dad on July 4, 1955. My sister Margie was born on July 4— ‘we’ve had a firecracker without a fuse,’ joked my dad at the time — hence the birthday cake.
1975
“Digitized from Standard 8mm footage.”
1976
On July 4, 1976, Mt. Lebanon buried a time capsule to celebrate the Bicentennial of our nation. “As a 15-year-old kid, I shot this Super8 movie of the ceremony,” says Heid.