The Price of Memories

i’ve mentioned i’m a pack rat. and, despite high hopes at the time i moved in, i haven’t made a dramatic dent in the amount of crap important and valuable life memories i have.

but i still try.

sitting in the garage, for example, are some six boxes of old vinyl records…the LPs.  do i own a turntable?  nope.  when i did, pre-divorce, did i listen to these records over and over?  rarely.

yet, still, i cling to them.

but, finally, i decided to dip my toes in the world of purging.  having passed, for the umpteenth time, a record store in our town’s hippie district that boldy announced – –

“We Buy Records”

…i finally decided to let go.

i picked out the closest box.  i went through the albums.  yes, some were not in the best of shape, but there were many there.  i had high hopes of

(a)  getting some whisky money out of them

(b) clearing out space in my garage so i can better organize what i do use

(c) there is no (c), and

(d) perhaps feel good about the likelihood that my old records will make someone else very happy

hiking up my big boy pants, i strode into the store with the box and the clerk began to look through the 50-some records in there.

and he kept looking without stopping… okay, now he stopped at that one…and that one…and…that’s it?

five.  he pulled out five of the fifty.

i’m not a good haggler, but still felt i was getting what i was going to get out of him when we agreed on $10…$8 for the five albums he wanted, plus a ‘gift’ of $2 for him to take the remainder off of my hands.

I was crestfallen.  $10.  that’s it.

now, these are not irreplaceable albums.  i can get them on CD.  or even iTunes, for most of them.  but the fact that they were a part of me growing up.  listening to some at a very young age because that’s what mom and dad played on the stereo.  listening to others of my choice as i grew up and was capable of buying my own records.

none of them were playing when i lost my cherry and got laid the first time.*  none of them were playing when i first heard the news about JFK.**

but they were part of who i am.  some of my humor was based in those records.  i learned to sing with some of those records.

and for all of that…the memories, the lessons, the learning…gone.

…for $10.

[deep sigh]

yeah, bill, me too

=-=-=-=-=

*i honestly couldn’t tell you what was playing then.  i do vaguely recall the radio playing.  but my focus seemed to be elsewhere.  go figure.

**and i don’t remember what i was doing at all when the news of JFK broke.  all i do remember from then was being very pissed that they interrupted my saturday morning cartoons so they could televise the funeral.

Tags: a pack rat's comeuppance, a ten spot, it's just my life, purging the past