My Blue Jeans Record Player

A few weekends ago my 14-year-old daughter, McDaniel begged Monte to get a new needle for my old record player.

Yes, I said MY and RECORD PLAYER.

Hello there. Remember me?

I got this bad boy for my 8th or 9th birthday. 

I always referred to it as my Blue Jeans Record Player.

As in,

"Oh, you are having a sleepover Friday night? 

Should I bring over my Blue Jeans Record Player?"

OR

"Hey, you want to roller skate in the unfinished room in my basement to Disco Duck? Great! Let me go get my Blue Jeans Record Player!"

It was quite portable in case you missed the kicky handle on top.

I took it everywhere when it didn't live on top of my wooden bookcase

(the one my dad made me that is now in Ellie's room).

I played TOO DEATH the Grease album

(even though I was not allowed to see the movie until YEARS later),

and Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Of all the things that my mother has thrown out of mine through the years,

don't get me started where Rub-a-Dub dolly went

It wasn't me, Rub-a Dub! I would never
give you away! I don't remember
ever having that tugboat. Did mine
not come with the tugboat?
Someone has some 'splainin'
to do.

or the unknown condition 
of my wedding dress, 

it is a bit baffling she kept my Blue Jeans Record Player.

But I am so glad she did!

When she gave it to McDaniel a few weeks ago it was if she had found some ancient time capsule.

Ellie kept saying,

"Take it out of its box!"

Isn't it beautiful in its no touch screen simplicity?

My mom also found my little denim and handkerchief print container that held all my 45s--even the ones that I inherited from her when I was a kid.

This was hot stuff when I was growing up.
Or it was just me.
Yeah, that was probably it.

In that little cute homesy container was a  plethora of genres and eras.

I remember as kids, my brothers and sister and I would pull out all of the 45s my parents possessed and we critiqued them by writing yes or no or NO! on them as our musical tastes saw fit.

We played them on an enormous stereo embedded into a beautiful wooden console that was the size of a buffet table and sat in our living room.

Helen Reddy's Delta Dawn got a yes.

A big fat no! for Glen Campbell's By the Time I Get to Phoenix.

And the CMD written in the top left-hand of the record?

That would be my Aunt Connie's unmarried initials.

I guess her big sister (my mom) swiped it from her at some point. 

Monte actually found a place to take the record player for repair.

Get this:  it is called "Needle In A Haystack"

ironically.

(or not)

Monte walked in carrying my cute little Blue Jeans Record Player and laid it on the counter and the worker guy asked,

"What is that?!"

Not a great vote of confidence that our needle was going to get replaced.

Yet, with some investigation,
(it was the original circa 1978-1979 needle)

the aid of a really big catalog

and $10,

Monte came home with a just-like-new Blue Jeans Record Player.

McDaniel was ecstatic.

Apparently our dog Nigel photo bombs with his
hindquarters.

She dug through the hankie container and started playing everything from

Bonnie Tyler 

to The Letterman.

It was quite the musical mix.

By the end of the afternoon, she asked if Monte would take her to Half-Price Books so she could add a few of her own albums to the collection.

She came home with these:

That is Johnny Cash, The Temptations, The Supremes 

and Four Tops.

We never know in the morning who we are going to hear singing and from what era but 

THANK THE DEAR LORD

it isn't anyone who knows the first thing about twerking

and for my mom who kept my su-weet Blue Jeans Record Player.

Amen and Amen.