My Tunes, iTunes

I figure I’ve had 5 formats of a few of my favorite songs. My first memory of playing tunes was using my Aunt Jean’s old stereo to play Disney albums in the “playroom” in the basement. In those days, the playroom was an unfinished room where we sat right on the concrete floor, or on a woven rug that made permanent indentations in your skin. The old record player must have had a short, because it would shock us if we touched it wrong. (bad touching!!)

We had one of those adapters so we could stack up single records on it too. Remember those arms that would drop the next record to be played? Now that was technology! I was lucky to have older sisters so I was up on all the latest hits. Younger sister Betsy had something called a CloseNPlay - it played 45s when you closed the lid. I think it used a nail for a needle...

When I was in in 6th grade, I got a cool little record player for my birthday. Oh how I’d love to play my Jackson 5 album at night. “ABC” and Stop the Love You Save” I moved up to a stereo when I graduated from high school. It was awesome. My friend Chris Deardorff’s brothers had a band, and they were a big influence when it came to music. Thus my love for early Kansas and Aerosmith. Though my musical taste has always been eclectic – I loved Elton John, had some 50’s stuff, and the Grassroots. I ended up with quite a library of albums – and loved to look at cover art.

While I was in college, I talked my ex-boyfriend into installing an-8 track player into my 1977 Monza. That was a short-lived music format – poor sound quality and the cassettes were so huge. I had a big case that took up half of the back seat. The 8-track was replaced soon with a cassette player.

After Paul and I got married, one of our first big purchases was a “good” stereo. We loved it, at least until our daughter Amy ate the diamond tipped needle when she was 2 or so. By then all both cars had cassette players. Cassettes were around for a long time. I even joined one of those music clubs – twice, just to get my favorite albums in cassette format. During this time we also ended up with quite a selection of kid’s music and stories on cassette. I’ll forever know the words to everyone’s favorite songs – like “jimmy crack corn”.

Next came CDs. I re-joined the music club to get all the same music in CD format – James Taylor, Steely Dan, Doobies and more. In fact I think I’m still supposed to buy a few more CDs from them to fulfill my order- man that shipping fee was a bite. Good thing the company went bankrupt after file sharing via internet cut into sales!

I must admit, before record labels began suing people over illegally downloading music, I was into limewire and got many of my fave oldies free. But consider I had owned most of them in 3 or 4 formats already! It was so freeing to have CDs made up of all my very favorite tunes – no flipside junky songs.

For Mother’s Day last year, Amy and Jud got me my very own iPod. That was after I was frustrated walking on the beach with my sister and husband while they listened to their iPods, and I was tuneless! I love my iPod, and spent time downloading album art and arranging playlists. It was my saving grace when it came to training for the half marathon I walked in October.

Now I’m a Cube Queen ( I work in a cubicle in the Wallace State Office Building). There’s lots of ambient noise in cubicle-land, so I cover it with my iPod. When listening to my fave tunes, I really have to work hard to squelch my singing and humming impulse. I allow myself to do the head bob and mouth the words though – that doesn’t bother people, right? Okay, only if they don’t see me…