I was born in the decade when Atari was King. Hair metal bands, Soft Rock, and Country dominated the airwaves. Home televisions were mostly black and white and were housed in humongous cabinets with turn dial knobs and rabbit ears, too heavy to lift without the assistance of at least 2 lumberjacks. Cassettes were becoming prevalent, pushing 8 tracks to the wayside. However, it was still quite common to find cars that had 8 track players. Cell phones and personal computers were not in every household or purse yet, let alone ours. Those things were foreign to me.

It wasn't just that I was a child. It was that most of those things were extravagances that we did not have. Besides, who needed those things when living in the country? Nature is entertaining enough. On a homestead there is so much to do that in our leisure time we didn't usually do much besides watch PBS and the evening news. Of course, playing outside was my number one past time. But, when I wasn't outdoors playing, I found other ways to entertain myself.

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For entertainment I would often go to the stereo cabinet where my stepfather's Technique receiver and amp from the 70's resided, along with a double cassette player that had a stereo mic input and recording capability; timeless music equipment that are collectable antiques now, which seemed fancy for the time, at least to me. Also in the cabinet was where his belt drive fixed tonearm 33 1/3rd and 45 rpm turntable lived. The kind where you lifted a lever to raise the tonearm and it would move over a designated amount hovering over the record precisely at the beginning. When the lever was lowered it would slowly descend, making a distinct crackle/pop noise as it landed on the record.

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He had at least 150 records, if not more, which I scoured through often. Probably a million times, but who's counting? Most of them were 12' 45s. A few were 12' 33s, and some were 7" 45s. Of the records he owned, most were album hits from the 60's that were popular when he would have been in his early twenties. Not all of them were musical. Some were stories by famous authors or comedy skits by famous comedians. I listened to them all.

Of my favorite albums Credence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Cash, Patsy Kline, and The Blues Brothers were top of the list. However, nothing compared to Simon and Garfunkel. Bridge Over Troubled Waters was the best album ever created on the face of the planet, or so I thought. As children often do, I played my favorite songs on repeat, over and over and over and over again.

I don't remember being annoying about it to the rest of my family. It's possible I was just oblivious, as children so often are. I loved listening to the story Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the comedy skit Noah by Bill Cosby. My little mind was filled with thoughts that expanded my mind and touched my heart. To this day I could still listen to those records on repeat if I had my turntables set up.

I miss my stepfather Jack very much. When he passed away in 2013 I inherited his records. It meant so much to me then. It means so much to me now. These were my first experiences playing with records. Eventually, playing music with the turntables faded away from being commonplace. Exciting new technologies, the boom box and soon after walkmans and cd players, seemingly knocked the turntables into the afterthought of most people.

It wasn't just records that were a fun past time for me to mess around with. Jack owned a good quality double tape deck which could playback and record through an external mic. Jack had these heavy duty earphones with two parallel small diameter metal adjustable rods that were connected to ugly army green cupped earphones. These were from his days as an Air Traffic Controller in the Army during Vietnam. Those are still floating around here somewhere, I believe. Good high end, clear sounding headphones. There was also a microphone, I believe an sm 58 dynamic microphone, also from his Air Traffic Controller days.

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One day, when I learned that his tape deck was capable of recording, he showed me how to plug in the microphone, tell which side of the cassette was at the beginning, how to insert it correctly into the tape deck, how to duplicate cassettes, and of course, how to operate the push buttons. I recall one day in particular where I was sitting on the cold tile floor with those ugly bulky headphones on, which were nearly swallowing the sides of my head. With the microphone in hand I recorded random phrases. Isn't it funny how when the record button is pushed, sometimes the mind goes blank?

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Finding things to say wasn't as easy as I imagined it would be. Nevertheless, words were spoken, ramblings were recorded, and brief moments in history of my childhood were documented onto cassette tape through the assistance of my audio savvy Stepfather. You know, I actually still have some of those recordings. I'm not sure where they are, but I know I still have them.

What's funny is how different my voice sounds recorded than it does from "inside my head". As an adult I found one of those recordings. Listening to it was an odd experience, for sure. What sticks out of that particular recording was not when I was trying to mimic a radio dj by announcing a song, singing it. It was when I was just chit chatting with Jack. Specifically a phrase I said that phonetically sounded like this; "Jack, yoo-ur sow-uh see-uh-ly". A little country twang mixed with a little bit of an odd speech pattern. Although some of the memory is fuzzy, as it was decades ago now, it will always be a fond memory.

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Later on in life, around my late teens/early twenties, turntables and records were brought back into my life once electronic music was introduced to me through friends that dj'd at illegal warehouse parties, mixing music such as Techno, House, Breakbeats, Trance, and Drum and Bass. The turntable brand was still Technique, only they had evolved to be direct drive. Advances which allowed the records to be stopped, sped up, slowed down, and the pitch shifted by the mere touch of the hand. The tonearms were now capable of being raised either with the lever or by hand and placed anywhere on the record you wanted. There were even special needles that could be attached that would allow you to scratch like a turntablist.

This allowed djs to blend one record into the other making a seamless transition from record to record for a continuous mix that often lasted one to two hours per dj when they performed at House parties and Raves. The only time the music stopped was when a dj handed off to the next dj, as the different styles of electronic music were at different speeds making them hard, or impossible, to blend together. This was a whole new world to me. An exciting world which shaped my life for almost 2 decades.

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Almost immediately after graduating high school I became a dj, playing local and regional Raves. A few clubs and bars along the way. Then I transitioned into a Recording Engineer as a legit professional career as a Layback Audio operator for Television shows and Feature Movies produced by Warner Brothers. It's as if most of my life has been filled with experiences revolving around recording equipment and records. I feel very fortunate to have been influenced by those early experiences with Jack. The fond memories of bonding time with my Stepfather, who came into my life when I was just a toddler, are etched in my mind like a song cut onto record.

As a young adult it's possible the electronic music scene would have still become an interest, but I like to think that my childhood experiences listening to Jack's records and learning from him set the stage for a direction in life that morphed into much more than a past time or hobby. Every time I look at a turntable or cassette deck, I think back fondly of Jack, especially now that he is gone. Every time a Simon and Garfunkel song comes on the air, my thoughts are transported back in time. Every time I pick up an sm 58, the sound of my little odd voice replays in my head of that innocent moment I shared with my stepfather. It was a special time. A memory that I will enjoy rewinding to play again and again in my head, for as long as possible. Miss you Jack.