I've always been a fan of vinyl. I held out as long as I could before I bought my 1st tape. I hated it! Then came Cd's. I held on to all of my records even when I did not have anything to play them on. About 7 years ago I was given a turntable & I broke out my record collection. I cannot explain the joy I felt listening to the crackles and hisses featured behind the music. Tom made lots of comments about how inferior vinyl was to Cd's. I did not care & continued to play them with glee. So many wonderful memories were wrapped up in those albums.

Technical difficulties made it impossible to play my records for a couple of years. Basically something got unplugged or wires were crossed & it affected not only my record player but my VCR as well. Hmmm.. suspicious..since all of Tom's modern playing devices worked just fine. YES, I still own a VCR! I have some great thing on tape, like me jumping out of an airplane & Buns of Steel. Tamilee Webb's workouts kick butt (pun intended) to this day. Well, quite recently, Tom decided to conquer the abyss of wires behind our entertainment unit & fix my antique artifacts.

It was no small feat. We have 5 pieces of equipment, but there are 300 wires back there. I could not even sit in the room while he performed this surgery because watching made my stomach queasy. I moved to the kitchen & some time later I heard the strangest sound coming from the living room.....Olivia Newton John. Tom was playing Xanadu. And it sounded awesome!!! We both sat back and listened. And then something magical happened; Tom finally understood the beauty of vinyl. He got it. Those crackles are pure and good. Voices sound so clear and real & you can feel the emotion in a singer's voice on a record.

And albums covers are fun to look at. Many were works of art. They opened up and had great pictures and lyrics in normal sized print. Many record sleeves also had more eye candy printed on them. I spent hours as a kid looking over every inch of them. I wonder if any else remembers this....sometimes posters were included with your albums. You would unwrap the thin layer of plastic, pull out the record sleeve and folded up inside would be a poster of the artist. Bonus!! I inherited a Prince poster this way. Can't remember which album it was from but I treasured that free gift with purchase. Put it up on the back of my bedroom door and kissed him every night before bed. Kissing posters through the years is a story for another time. I'm going to pull out a record for Leo and play it for him today. I want him to be familiar with vinyl and learn to appreciate it. Not sure what I'll play. Maybe some old school Prince or Madonna. The Boss is always good or maybe The Cure.

Posted by Dawn Falcone @ 5:41 AM 4 comments

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