I was walking down the aisle at Best Buy, and I stopped and asked, "Do you have anything that plays cassette tapes?". The kid looked at me like his grandfather had just dropped in for a visit. I could have asked, "Do you have a Victrola that plays wax cylinders?", and got the same reaction. “Everything we have is on the shelf.” he said, and wandered off. On the shelf were these things that looked a little like speakers with a slot for plugging in an ipod. Once again technology has shoved me aside and sped right past. 
When I was a kid the technology was simple. My sister, brother, and I, shared a little record player that was no more than a turntable with a speaker. On that record player we would spin our collection of red, and yellow, children’s records, including ‘Old MacDonald’, and my favorite, ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’ from Disney’s Cinderella. The only problem was that we didn’t have a proper needle for playing records so we found a small nail on my dad’s work bench and used that. The nail tended to skip so we rectified that problem by taping a nickel on top of the tone-arm. You could actually see the vinyl being
shaved off of the record as it ground away under the “needle”. By the time I was about five years old, all of our records sounded like they had been recorded by Edison himself, lots of static with bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, barely audible in the background.I guess I will have to give in to progress and eventually get myself an ipod or some other mp3 player. I’ll have to download all my music off of Amazon.com, but something about it just doesn’t feel right. I miss reading the back of the big LP’s, and the cover art. Even the cassettes and the CD’s had inserts and tiny little cover art. You just can’t replace something like the cover of The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers, with some downloaded picture that you printed out on your inkjet. By the way, I went to BestBuy.com, and although I couldn’t find a Victrola, they do have cassette decks for us old farts. Five to be exact, out of 227 results for my stereo inquiry.
Truth in advertising: The little boy in the picture, sitting by the turntable, is not me! It is some little squirts photo that I stole off the internet.
ReplyDeleteYup, and I remember when you could buy a loaf of bread for 5 cents and gas was 32 cents a gallon.
ReplyDeleteWow, anonymous #1, you're even older than I am. Five cents for bread? I do remember paying thirty five cents for a pack of Camels. The doctor on television said they were good for your throat.
ReplyDeleteAfter I went to school (uphill both ways in the snow) I used to come home and look at my Cars albums...and dream of Benjamin Orr-that's how long ago it was. I miss them. I finally gave my extensive collection of vinyl to some techno geek that had a "collection" in his basement.
ReplyDeleteBeware of guys with "collections" in their basements.
ReplyDeleteYep, I remember buying chewing gum from vending machines in gas station men's room for only 25 cents.
ReplyDeleteAnd I bet they were VERY chewy!
ReplyDeleteThose wasn't chewing gum machines in those men's restrooms. hehe
ReplyDeleteoopsie! I meant "Those weren't" (unless you were from the souf sod of Chicaga)
ReplyDeleteThose were condom despensers....
ReplyDeletecorrection: dispenser (this blog needs spell-check)
ReplyDeleteNo, the old fart from Michigan needs to not comment when he's drinking vodka.
ReplyDeleteThat's Captain Morgan's 100 proof Spiced Rum and soymilk. A Vegan Cocktail? hmmmm....
ReplyDeleteCan you get "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" online to download to your Ipod? I have never heard that one. But, I do remember penny candy.
ReplyDeleteRussell, go to YouTube and type in Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. You will get the Disney version and a version by Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae that I like better.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Jo Stafford and Gordon MacRae version much better. I take it that Jo is the girl on the album cover.
ReplyDelete