The Lifetimes Guarantee

By Jim Hagarty
2013

The other night a friend showed me something that I didn’t know existed. It is an archival CD, made with gold and guaranteed to keep information safe for 300 years.

This to me is startling. How can anyone know this little gold disc will preserve music (in my friend’s case) for three centuries? How would anyone be able to test that? Three hundred years is a long time. Three hundred years ago there was no Canada, no United States of America. The Rolling Stones were touring but they were pretty much the only band out there.

Who is going to give my friend his money back if it fails in its 278th year?

But wouldn’t it be great to dig up one of these CDs from 300 years ago and be able to hear what people sounded like back then?

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.