What is
it about “stuff” that, when they’re new, we seem to be obsessed with owning them and, within a short period
of time, they’re no longer THE thing to have and are, in fact, looked upon as old school?
You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?
Remember the toy that you JUST HAD to have when you were a kid? I
remember wanting a portable, battery operated record player (“turntable” for you “too cool” people)
just like one my cousin, Trish, had. I fantasized about it. Dreamed about it.
Drove my parents crazy talking about it until, finally, lo one Christmas morn, there it was, under the tree.
Never mind that I only had three records (“45’s” at that) to my name. But, by
golly! I had my record player!
Well,
it wasn’t but a year or two later that I started hearing about stereos – those “all-in-one” kinds.
They had a turn table, Am/FM radio, and 8-TRACK all in one “box”! Way cool!
In time, having added quite a few records in my collection, I started obsessing about this heavenly combo.
Every store that I went in to, I headed straight for their electronics section and scoped out the goods.
To me, the “high end” seemed to come at the princely sum of $100. In the early ‘70’s,
it may as well have been $1 million to a 12 year old kid. I had no idea how I was going to raise that much
money but I knew that I had to have one. I knew that my parents weren’t going to be able to help
me because they were making two house payments until they could sell our old home along Black Canyon Freeway in Phoenix.
Nonetheless, the stereo was always at the top of my “want list”.
In
the fall of ’73, Mom and Dad finally sold the old house and we could begin to breathe a little easier in our new home
in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. One Friday night, we had all come back from shopping at one of our favorite
stores and I settled down in the family room to watch some favorite T.V. program of mine. I don’t
remember the name of the show but I do remember that everyone in the family knew that this was THE show that I had to watch.
Dad was out of the room so I just figured that he was busy in another part of the house doing whatever.
He eventually came back into the room. When he did, Mom said, “Randy, go clean your room.”
WHAT??? I’m like,
“Mo-o-o-m! This is my favorite show! Can’t I clean it after it’s over?”
She gave me “the eye” and said, “Go in there . . . NOW!”
What on earth possessed the woman? Didn’t she know
how important that show was to me? Besides, what was so darned important about cleaning my room on a Friday
night anyway?
Well, I
knew that I better obey or the consequences could be quite painful, so, off to my room I went.
I walked in to my bedroom thinking, “Hmm! The room
ain’t that bad. I should be able to kick everything under the bed in about a minute and a half.”
Then, I saw some blob out of the corner
of my eye. In a split second, I’m thinking, “Okay, maybe two and a half minutes”, because
of whatever the pile was that I saw in the periphery. When I turned to see the pile consisted of, there
it was: My new stereo highlighted by the light of Heaven, with voices of angels from on high singing Handel’s
Hallelujah Chorus. I bolted back to the family room, thanking my parents over and over.
They both were smiling ear to ear, knowing that they scored right on that one! It didn’t take
long for the smile to disappear from their faces as I continually tested the volume limits of my pride and joy.
As you might guess, the novelty of my little gem wore off in a year or two,
to be viewed as “old school” with the advent of higher end component systems. I will write
about my adventures in entering the real of being a stereophile in a future article.
I’ve
got to run now. I’m writing a letter to Santa, giving him the details of my dream media room!
