When You Buy The Same Thing You Bought Forty-Plus Years Ago...

 One of the funnest things we got this past Christmas was a record player. It's not a high-end record player, but it's modern, and by modern, I mean it has Bluetooth technology s we can broadcast the sound from the TV sound bar.

We've had a blast playing records.

When my mother-in-law relocated north with us last year, we cleaned out her house. She had several albums she kept over the years...mostly Christmas records from the sixties or seventies. There were a couple of my wife's albums included. I'm sure we did the same thing at my mom's house when she passed away almost fifteen years go--got rid of stuff. Unfortunately, I did not keep any of the many records we listened to growing up. That's something I regret. We had some classics.

With a new record player, we ventured out this morning in search of lost memories. We first went to the local thrift store. They had nada...well, almost nada. After that, we stopped by BestBuy and looked through their selection. That's where I spotted 2112 from RUSH. 

It's the same album I bought probably from Grand Central more than forty years ago. It's strange, thinking I'd ever want to own vinyl again. With digital music, there's no physical connection required to transfer sound from object to speaker. It's obvious--digital sound is vastly superior to analog, in every way.

However, even though this is true, there's something digital can't give you...the memories of static, of expertly placing the needle on the exact spot on the spinning disk to begin the music exactly where you want. No...digital music is wonderful, but putting on a record, watching it turn, having a thin piece of metal vibrate from grooves in the record and having that vibration translate to music and lyrics.

It's magic.

I spent hours and hours listening to this album, other RUSH albums as well as albums from STYX, Journey, Kansas, and so many others. I would love to have my old collection back, but I think hunting for the classics will be fun, too. Day 1 of the hunt is over, and I bagged a good one.