Sunday, May 6, 2012

Can You Hear Me Now?


I just completed a short visit to my parents, looped onto a business trip.  As soon as I arrived I had to wire and install speakers in their bedroom. They've been waiting months for me to do it. The speakers looked vaguely familiar. I realized that I bought them in 1972, when in high school. I listened to Iron Butterfly and Supertramp on those walnut veneer speakers. They've been dropped a few dozen times over the decades, are chipped and dusty, yet apparently still work. Do you think your Kindle will function 40 years from now?

It gets better. My Dad agreed to have me sell his 212 record albums, which he thought he fairly valued at $1 each. Well that’s not quite how it works . . . I’ve been researching this for a while and I finally found a place that gave me $21 for the pile, hmm, about 10 cents per album. Despite bringing them to the gayest neighborhood in San Diego, all those show tune soundtracks from the 1960’s were not so desirable. Note that Dad carefully blacked out all the “promotional – not for sale” labels on the albums that he got for free back when my brother was a deejay. He didn’t want to get in trouble with the music police.

I was tempted to find a slide rule to calculate my commission - however Dad graciously let me keep the proceeds. I realized flying home tonight that my own music system is more than 20 years old and I’m still using my speakers as furniture (thanks Bob, for that nostalgic trigger).  So I’m going to buy a new setup tomorrow. Not succumbing to genetics this time, no way!

2 comments:

Karen Vogel said...

From Sid G:
If you try to sell your Iron Butterfly records, you might get busted. Not because they are promotional records, but because...well, they are Iron Butterfly records.

In forty years people will say, "What's a Kindle?"

Karen Vogel said...

From Marion W:
Is the volume going to go high enough for them?