There was another surplus auction today, and it was the best one ever, for a reason that only matters to me.
I was scanning the shelves of printers, scanners, various electronic do-dads, and saw this:
I thought, “Hey, that looks like the one we had when I was a kid.” Then I got closer and the shock hit that it was exactly like the one we had when I was a kid and no kidding – I started to tear up.
I believe I have a skewed personality because I have a deeper connection to things than people, and this was proof. I’m standing there weeping, playing with the switches – that awesome t-style switch (this one was missing the upside-down-cone-style handle), the volume control, and the perfect, red-square ‘record’ button.
When my siblings and I were kids, this was the Magic Machine that could capture your voice and play it back! It was amazing! We had tapes of band and choir concerts, us goofing around and being funny, and lots of ‘firsts’ Mom & Dad recorded when we were babies.
Look at this microphone – was there ever anything cooler? It was a perfect, shiny rectangle with a wire stand on the back and a switch!
Ok, I get it. Nobody is going to love this thing like me, but I wrote this post for my family. I didn’t buy the recorder for two reasons: 1) we had to leave before it was sold, and 2) right after I told Lloyd, “Buy this – no matter what the cost!” I took a dozen pictures and realized that I didn’t need the thing. The memory and the emotion were the payoff, and owning it would lessen its magic. Besides, I have all these pictures to remember it by:
A little story to distract you from my delirium: Last year I got out our school’s tape player (similar in style to this, but with big, chunky buttons) and some books-on-tape and left them out for the afternoon aides to use with the children. The next day I came back and they – these girls two decades my junior – said, “Um, we weren’t quite sure how to use the tape player.”
I could have died.