Memory Lane

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With the help of a USB record player I have been listening to all my old vinyl records these past few weeks. From the very first record I bought with my saved up weekly allowance ~ to the last record I bought right before I decided to take the next technological step and to buy a CD player...

And now it seems that the preferred way to access all the music I liked so well (and the music of which the purchase now baffles me) is through MP3 players. Whether that means a computer or a more portable model.

I never owned a great collection records or CD’s ~ but surprisingly it is enough to listen to music for over four days straight.
And as I have discovered, these four days would be the ultimate trip down Memory Lane...

With every piece of music, every song, memories come to the surface.

The memory of my Dad’s record player. It was a piece of wood furniture that housed a radio as well as a record player, and it was capable of playing the ‘regular’ Long Playing records, Singles, but also the older 78 rpm vinyl discs. In order to play your record, one had to open it and the record player would hinge into a horizontal position.

Later records were listened to on a more modern version. Now mostly plastic, it still housed a radio as well as a record player ~ however it had left behind the ‘furniture look’.

The first records I bought were traditional music.
Looking back, I would have thought I’d have bought some 60’s or 70’s music, as that was the time I grew up. Yet I don’t own a single record from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or even Abba. Yet looking at the collection I have put together over all those years, the word eclectic comes to mind.

And so are the memories associated with every record, every CD I have listened to. Re-discovered in a sense.
Much to my surprise, most of my memories don’t have anything to do with the music itself. They are connected to the time frame in which I bought that particular record or CD.

Like the one that still makes me smile in appreciation for the cup of coffee a co-worker would have ready for me as soon as I came in to work the early morning shift...
Or the one bringing me right back to the Sunday morning breakfast table, listening to the radio program I actually liked ~ just not at that hour of the day...

Walking memory lane, it’s all there. The events, the scents, the time of year, the way the light came through the tall willow trees next to our house.
It is re-assuring that it is all still there, safely archived in my mind...
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