The Record Player

For many reasons I love my dad.  One of them is the entertainment he provides for our family.  He has a unique way of communicating that usually ends up with an outburst of unexpected laughter from the listener.  Also, he is always doing something so unbelievable that no one would believe it if it wasn’t my dad doing it.  My dad marches to the beat of his own drummer and if you aren’t paying attention, you might miss something great!

My dad has an extensive record collection.  It’s the good stuff, old Firestone Christmas records, old 40’s music, etc.  He even has a few of my mom’s and my old stuff in his compilation.  A few years ago for Christmas, we gave him a new record player/radio/CD player/tape player created to look like an old radio.  The turntable works great but it only plays one record at a time and the CD player has quit working.  For awhile now, he has lamented that technology has progressed past his collection and he worries that, although he has a turntable, at any moment it could quit and all his vintage music would be inaccessible.  He looked into buying a new combination player that will burn a CD from any music it plays, but the price tag quickly changed his mind.   As a result, he has been trying to figure out a way to get his music onto CD’s which are the latest technology.  He sporadically spends a lot of time trying to find a solution to this problem without spending a lot of money.

It started this Christmas.  He heard me say how much I miss the old records at Christmas.  That set everything off.  He decided to bring the working record player/broken CD player to my house for Christmas with several of his old Christmas records – which I loved.  Then his mind began to plot.  He called me one day and suggested that “Since I love the record player so much, he would like to gift it to me.”  When I asked what he would use, he told me '”Oh, I have some options in mind.”  Then, he pulled out his OLD Gerard turntable from some unknown corner of the garage. This is the unit he used before we bought the combo unit and hoped to never see again.  However, he likes the Gerard because it plays more than one record at a time (scratching all the records below but that’s beside the point).  He dusted it off and brought it to his room.  He plugged it into the boom box he inherited 20 years ago from Michael and let ‘er rip!  All he heard was what sounded like mice squeaking throughout his room.  He couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the hook-up.  So, as he has done so many times before, he called the local technological superman, Lamar Newmeyer.  Within minutes Lamar was in his room listening to (and wondering at) the ancient sound set-up.  Lamar took one listen and suggested a pre-amp was the ticket; he suggested Dad check with Radio Shack, The Guitar Center., etc.  So, off Dad went to procure a pre-amp. 

In the middle of his quest, I spoke to him.  I suggested he purchase a turntable at Costco that would not only plug into his old boom box, but could plug into the computer and pull his music off the records and turn them into mp3 files which could, in turn, be made into CD’s (which is what he wanted all along).  He was delighted with the suggestion and to his great joy, found that the turntable with the USB plug-in was $30.00 less this year than last.  At last, he could rest easy, his music would not die!  He went to Costco and made the purchase.  He called me with his report; “I have the turntable, it’s really nice.”  I told him that was great.  Then he dropped the bomb; “So, I was thinking you could borrow my turntable for as long as it takes to turn the records into CD’s.  In the meantime, I went to the Guitar Center.  They have a pre-amp but it’s $70.00.  They have a cheaper one, $21.00, but they won’t have it in until February.  I decided I can wait until then.”

I blinked in total confusion.  I was now to get the entire record collection onto CD?  He was still going to buy a pre-amp?  And then it hit me, this is my Dad’s true genius.  He was able to get rid of the broken turntable/CD/Cassette/radio unit under the guise of being benevolent, purchase a new-fangled turntable with plug-ins and procedures he didn’t understand and get someone who does understand to get all his music onto CD’s saved for generations, and  get his beloved Gerard to work in his own room to listen to his own records for as long as he, and/or his Gerard, are alive.  Do you think this series of events just fell perfectly into place for him or was it a carefully planned plot with all details cunningly designed to save his records, record player, and music legacy?  I think the latter.  Or maybe he just wants to be a DJ mixer with his old Gerard – DJ Larry Lair; wickie wickie wickie  . . .