The Vinyl MUST Live On

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If you’ve been on myLot more than 45 minutes you know two things. One, I love music. Two, JJ loves vinyl. (I do, too.) Over the past couple of years I’ve had the most unpleasant task of cleaning out houses of my relatives. One was when my aunt went into a nursing home, and the second was when my dad died. Doing that once is crushing in the emotional pain. Doing it twice? Let’s not go there. So I started thinking about things. One of the things I thought of was a good friend, who lamented about what would happen to his massive record collection once he died (“my grandkids will just throw all this away,” he mused....and he owned a record store for decades!). Another was not wanting to inflict what I’ve been through in “the final housecleaning” on my niece, brother, or grand-nephews and grand-niece. And yes, I thought about Clarence’s words....what’s a Nirvana fan going to do with a Faron Young album? I also thought about donating them to the Country Music Hall of Fame, but that was a fleeting thought. I did my college internship there, and I know what they do with records they don’t want. So, I contacted JJ. I warned him that it was mostly country, but he said he’d be interested. Today I did my “mission of mercy” — more for the preservation of the vinyl, understand (although I did take Scar some tuna ) — and took the records to JJ’s house. I told him point blank he’d probably put the needle down on one album and go, ”DANG that woman’s got bad taste in music!!” (He laughed [but didn’t deny it ].) But you never know. Heck, I love Faron Young AND the Ramones. And JJ and I are basically cut from the same cloth (music is good; good music is better). So the albums are now in JJ’s loving hands. I told them they are his to do as he pleases. If he listens to some and likes them (I’m guessing he might enjoy Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and maybe even Bob Wills), then great! If he doesn’t (got a lot of money bet on that happening ), then he’s free to use his connections to see that they get a good home. The important thing is that the vinyl must live on, and not end up in a garbage dump. I know that’ll happen now, thanks to JJ. PS — he really is a grumpy old guy (and he paid me to say that). A sample of the weird things I listen to: