"Are you SURE?" I ask as I am opening the garage door, starting the car, and heading for the second-hand music store downtown.
"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll never play them again and I've lugged them from Germany, to three homes in Missouri and five homes in Kansas. I haven't even looked at them in years. It's time. "
Molly Hatchett, REO Speedwagon, Linda Rondstat, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.........
This is momentous. He is ready to let go of 150 albums that were collected, organized, fawned over, and catalogued while serving in the Air Force. Rock groups that he saw in concert, songs that he has associative memories with. You know how that is. "Oh man, I remember listening to this song when I was training for......" and the stories start to flow.
ABBA, Soundtrack from Footloose, Journey, The Beach Boys, Styx, Alabama, Bob Seger........
We talked as we removed his name and social security number (!) from inside every single album cover. ("The Air Force required us to label every personal possession with name and SS number. If it wasn't labeled it was Air Force property.") We talked about why he had an Elvis Presley album ("Had to be my brother's.") and a Tex Ritter ("Had to be my dad's."). We remarked about what pristine condition they were in because he purchased special sleeves for the records and how now we just click a button on iTunes and store our music in a handheld device. We kept the four albums we have displayed on our basement wall for the last eight years because they are still special to him: Kansas (Dust in the Wind), Bruce Springsteen (Born in the USA), AD/DC (Black in Black) and Lynard Skinnard (Street Survivors). We remembered that is was fun to give my son and his new bride the album that contained the first song they danced to as newlyweds to display in their NYC apartment - Arthur's theme "Best You Can Do" sung by Christopher Cross. And we let all the rest of it go.
Daily Downsizing Tally - The above post says it all.
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