Vinyl Records; Vintage Memories

I own a small collection of old jazz records.  They belonged to my grandma. I also own her old stereo.

I love the stereo.  It is big and heavy and old.  It's roughly 6 feet long and maybe 2 1/2 feet tall - dark wood with a sliding top that reveals the turn-table on one side and record storage on the other.  Most days it is a lovely table of sorts that holds knick-knacks and photographs.  Every now and then, I plug it in.

Today, I plugged it in, selected a favorite album and was instantly transformed back in time 20 years or more. 

I loved to visit my grandma - she and I were buddies.  I spent many weekends at her house as a child and I continued to visit after I had a driver's license and a car of my own.  I loved to drop by unannounced because it made her so happy to have a surprise guest but also because it gave me a chance to see what she was "up to."  Sometimes I'd catch her gardening in her yard, other times I would see her hanging laundry on the line.  Sometimes she was watching television while working on a cross-stitch but every now and then I'd catch her dancing.

These are my favorite memories - like the one that came to mind today.  I drove up to see my grandma in Golden.  I parked my little car next to hers in the driveway and snuck up the porch - I could hear the music as soon as I turned off my engine.  Jazz.  As I crept up the porch steps, I could see her in the window - dancing to her favorite Jazz musicians.  My grandma loved jazz.  Her sister married a jazz musician (who played with Louis Armstrong back in the day!) and the two sisters loved to listen to music together.   And she loved to sing and dance.  I stood on the porch for a few minutes before knocking - watching the pure joy, the free style crazy dancing of my grandma to much-too-loud music.  Awesome.

Tonight, I introduced my children to records.  We chose one together, opened the stereo and turned it on.  They were in awe of the turn-table and kept returning to it to watch it spin. Of course, they couldn't resist touching it. The first scratch sound startled them and they thought they broke something.   Then we danced.  Joy filled the room as they boogied to old jazz tunes and ran around laughing.  I sat down and watched and listened.  Nothing beats the sound of a vinyl record playing - not even the high fidelity sound of CDs and Ipods.  The sweet sounds were comforting - in the same way my chiming clock is comforting - grandma is here.

I felt a bit melancholy watching my children dance to the same jazz music, played on the same stereo.  My grandma never met my children, she passed 3 months before I conceived Madison.  More than once I have thought that my grandma hand-picked my little Madison, just for me, because she would have loved her crazy spirit.  And Madison kinda dances like my grandma :)