Dispatch from my preteen diary: March 25th

When I was 11, I started keeping a diary. The effort lasted four months. You can see the whole series here.

Now, the 3rd installment:

It would not be hyperbolic to think that March 25th was probably one of the most significant days in my life--let alone my 11th year (spelling as written):

Today I got to new singles: One is Blinded by the Light and the other is Danceing Queen.

That was the day I bought my first records.

Now before you laugh too hard, think about the first records you bought. Okay, then.

When I first re-read this entry, I was struck by why I'd write that I bought two "new" singles--doesn't that imply there were others before it? Then I remembered why that was kinda true. While my parents coveted their James Taylor, Tom Rush, and Judy Collins albums, they had two small boxes of 45 singles from their teen days that they would let my brother and I do whatever we wanted with. If we wanted to wear the grooves off on our tiny plastic record player--go for it.

Since I thought my parents were ancient, I kinda expected their teenage singles to be what I considered to be equally ancient music: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, and the like. However, when I went through the boxes, I didn't encounter a single name I recognized. It was just stuff. Stuff that my parents probably heard on the radio, liked, and bought. No worries about street cred.

My brother and I didn't care if we knew the music or artists, we just played them for fun. I can even still hum a few of the melodies and recite the lyrics--even though I have no idea who wrote or sang them. Every once in awhile I Google some of the lyrics hoping to find out what they are. Nothing yet.

Well, after listening to the boxes of 45s for a few years, I decided to do exactly what may parents had done: I picked a few things I liked from the radio, took my allowance down to the record store, and bought my two favorites. I also was completely unconcerned with street cred, I just liked the songs.

These two were just the beginning of my long dependency on and love affair with music. I still buy a lot of music today--I've bought 96 albums so far in 2008 (and yes, I am the type of person who keeps track of these things). Some albums I'm on my sixth or seventh copies because I've worn them out, spontaneously given them away, or lost them as I traveled around. Every few weeks I discover something I love just as much as I loved "Dancing Queen" back then. I guess as long as that keeps happening, I'll know that I'm still vibrant and alive.

I have no idea where those two singles ended up. But I have no doubt that someday my kids will find them digging through a dusty box, pull them out, and...well, first off they'd wonder what the fuck they were. (At first I thought they might make some comment about the funny looking CD--but CDs will probably be my kids' versions of 8-tracks--some odd, wildly inconvenient and outdated technology that baffles them with its utter lack of usability).

Anyhow...

Once they found the record--and figured out what a record was--they'd look at the label and have a reaction similar to their own father's reaction a generation before. "Manfred Mann? Who the *&#$@ is that?"