Orville's Dad remembers the end of Mix Tapes and Stuff

Orvillle’s father looks back. In Mix Tapes and Stuff, we meet Schuyler High School sophomore Orville. He lazy, has money and spends it on video games, music he doesn’t listen to and electronics that he doesn’t care about. His plan for high school popularity is to buy it or if he has to, make people jealous. He’s fifteen. His father works in the early days of computers and makes good money. What did Dad think at the end of Mix Tapes and Stuff? Without giving away the end, Orville and his mother’s reckless buying ends badly.

Let’s talk to him 30 years after those events and see what he thought of it.

Oh 1986. Things were a mess. I worked a lot in the new tech industry. I took trips to see new Tandy computers and the new games. Think back. Atari had come and gone and there was this new Nintendo. By 1985 most people moved on from Atari and didn’t play those games anymore. 

I had a cell phone in 1986! The thing was a brick. 

I had plans to divorce my spend-happy wife. The kids would end up with me. I had the money and I saw the future in computers. Orville turned into the second coming of his mother. The kid wanted stuff like toys and games and stereos. Just to have them. He didn’t appreciate any of them. 

One day he skipped school to show off something he had. It turned out he stole it from some disabled girl because he wanted it more. There were police, yelling and Orville got taken away. His mother spent money on an inept attorney. The attorney that couldn’t save Orville knew a better divorce attorney that she hired. 

I got divorced. She got the house and the kids. Well she didn’t really. Orville went to reform school and Becca practically ran away for all the nights she spent at friends. 

I have a new home, but those years and that life is gone.