Turntable

Last night I was at a birthday party for one of my good, good girlfriends. She turned 53. Holy shit. Since when did my friends hit the mid-century mark? It was a very pleasant gathering of her close friends and family. We were all sitting around eating, drinking, laughing and yakking.

Her husband had brought down and dusted off his old turntable and vinyl albums from the 60's and 70's. The only thing we were missing was the bong and the lava lamp. Just as we all were dazed and deep in thought with old memories that had suddenly come to the surface after being nearly forgotten, along comes my 13 year-old daughter from outside with a curious fascination of the turntable.

She had never seen one before.

My friend's husband gladly brought her over to the turntable and explained how it worked. The look on my daughter's face was priceless. It was like having a real, live dinosaur in the living room. A living relic from days long gone. He patiently explained that the smooth parts on the vinyl were the breaks in between songs, and how you could stack records on top of each other for continuous music. He also explained the difference bewteen 33 RPM and 45 RPM. Pretty soon the others threw out their comments on the turntable.

"Remember how we used to place a coin on top of the needle so it wouldn't skip?"

"Remember how a record would sound all funky and warped if it was left in the sun?"

"If the needle got dusty it would make a weird noise and slide across the record."

"Album covers were a form of pop art."

"We would play them backwards to listen for hidden, subliminal messages."

Ahhhhhhhh, I guess I'm dating myself...but what a fun evening.