CDs

I am old enough to remember 78 rpm records.  There were some to be found in everyone's home.  The ones in my house were mostly Christmas ones.  Adeste Fideles by Bing Crosby,  If It Doesn't Snow on Christmas and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer by Gene Autry.  Peg's family's collection went beyond the holidays.  Catch a Falling Star by Perry Como, Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by The Four Lads, Lavender Blue, Dilly, Dilly by Burl Ives.  These very breakable records made up the soundtrack of my childhood.

The rock and roll years introduced the 45 rpm singles.  Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, and Pat Boone took turns crooning to the members of my family.  There was better rock and roll out there, but these were the artists that my parents could tolerate.  I still recall when my tiny little brother bought a 45 of Jerry Lee Lewis singing Great Balls o' Fire.  They made him return it.  Before the Beatles came along, I filled my pink plastic 45s album with Bobby Rydell singles.  He did a rendition of Volare, so he passed muster with my parents.

And then came the LPs.  I know I owned at least one Bobby Rydell LP, and then there was The Beachboys.  Who among us was ready for Beatlemania?  My purchase of Meet the Beatles coincided with the onset of teenage angst.  It was all downhill (or uphill?) from there.

And just as we would get used to some new delivery system for the music we craved, things would change.  LPs gave way to 8-tracks, which gave way to cassette tapes, which gave way to CDs, which gave way to MP3 downloads, which gave way to Internet playlists.  I am fairly certain that the day will come when we can have a chip embedded into our skulls, full of the music we love.  It will play inside our heads anytime we choose.

I have a couple of iPods.  I have satellite radio in my cars.  I stream public radio music stations through the Internet.  But I also have a CD collection, and I am not ready to get rid of it.

Kathy (who will be sharing music with her significant other as soon as they find a condo to buy) presented me with her CD collection last night.  She gave her guy first dibs, but most of the titles were duplicates of what he already had, so she gave me the collection to take whatever I want.  Hence, I spent the better part of the afternoon sorting through both her CDs and my own CDs, alphabetizing, purging, adding, shelving.  Big project.

I don't really NEED all these CDs.  The music I love is on my iTunes and consequently, my iPods.  But I am not ready to donate my CD collection to the local library.  I cannot explain this to you, except to say:

I am in love with my CDs.