You better believe I enjoyed the BB guns Santa brought me when I was a young 'un. The miniature pinball games my maternal grandma gave me most years on Christmas Eve I coulda done without.
One gift from my youth, however, really thrilled me. In fact, it's the only gift I can recall being really excited about using. And I used it a lot.
Tape recorders in the 1970s were cool.
Sure, these days you have your iPods, your Blackberry's, your iPhones, your personal computers, etc.Fuck that bunch of nuevo tech bullshit.
None of 'em could touch the excitement of a 10-year-old and his brand new, mic'ed up tape recorder. Somewhere in a closet, my parents still have 20 minutes of me imitating Wolfman Jack.
Gifting is better when done simple.
4 comments:
The tape recorder was the coolest gift. I just wish that I hadn't lost all those tapes I made because only one that I know survived. I suspect that many of us who grew up in the seventies and eighties share similar experiences because my wife found some old cassettes where she and her brother are singing about Christmas. They must be about four or five in them. Good times!
That was one of my favorite gifts too. The cassette that I wish I could find happened on Christmas Eve. My dad surreptitiously turned on the tape recorder while my grandma was talking about the old days. I plan to do the same with him this holiday as I got a digital recorder.
Not to mention, the recording quality on those old analog machines is far superior to most of the digital crap on phones and hand held gadgets of today.
My parents have about a 10 minute tape of me interviewing people in my family during one Sunday afternoon while waiting for Sunday dinner. It is brought to a screeching halt when I ask my aunt, "So how do you feel about Richard dying?" (Richard was my uncle who had recently passed away from a brain tumor). I dont think I was allowed to play with the tape recorder anymore. -Cara
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