Listening to music the old-fashioned way

One day last summer, as the dental hygienist walked me to the front desk, she said, "I'm excited to go home and tell my family tonight at the dinner table, that I saw a Walkman in use today." Filling in for my regular hygienist, she said this with a smile, but it still took me a few seconds to realize it was a positive comment. I've been accused of being a "dinosaur" as far as electronic devices go and been told that if I had a smart phone, I wouldn't need my Walkman – a reject left behind by one of my kids years ago. Listening to Olivia Newton-John singing on my Walkman always helps drown out dental sounds, but I use it on other occasions as well.

Then a couple months before Christmas, I was surprised to see in a catalog a Bluetooth Audio System (on sale for $219.99) that looked almost identical to the 25-year-old audio system I listen to many nights while going to sleep, a silver and black AIWA with an AM/FM radio, remote control, CD player, dual cassette player, and detachable speakers. The one in the catalog also featured an MP3 player and was Bluetooth enabled, both of which I know nothing.

That reminded me of an article I'd read Christmas before last. In the December 2023 Costco Connection article "The Right Present," author Andy Penfold wrote:

Does your gift recipient have a loft full of old records gathering dust because they subscribe to a music streaming service and already have streaming devices in every room? Encourage them to embrace the warm, rich sound of vinyl with a new turntable. From vintage-looking wooden designs to sleek modern models, record players can be a hit for audiophiles."

Old fashioned record players being suggested as good Christmas "tech" gifts? Could my vintage music machines possibly be making a comeback?

I fussed at my husband Gary for buying the new Aiwa back in 1999, saying I didn't know why we needed another electronic gadget. He replied that he liked the double cassette recording feature. And I'm so glad he did purchase it! Six months later, it was the perfect setup for listening to music in our new-to-us Slana home, but only when the generator was running. Years later when we returned to Palmer, it became my standby for music, audiobooks and radio in my office/craft room. Now it has an honored place in my bedroom, with its stereo surround sound. In fact, my home is full of vintage music listening equipment that take cassettes, CDs, and vinyl records, and I enjoy using all of them. Besides the cassette player in my bedroom, there is a record player in the guest/craft room, and a Sony under-the-counter CD player in the kitchen.

I remember how excited I was when Gary installed the new Sony space saving CD player in my Slana kitchen in the spring of 2005. A few years prior, I had seen a similar cassette/CD player in the kitchen of a friend in Palmer, and I'd immediately decided that was something I would like when I could afford it. But, when I got serious about purchasing one, the combo player was no longer available anywhere. The cassette part had become obsolete. I even tried eBay. So, I had to settle for only the CD player. But at the time, I had an old portable double cassette player in the kitchen that worked fine, so it really didn't matter.

I spent a lot of time in that kitchen, especially in the summer – fixing breakfast for our bed and breakfast guests, making jam to sell, everyday cooking, and taking care of garden produce. Without even one radio station, sometimes the kitchen was too quiet. I really would have liked to listen to KCAM radio station out of Glennallen or KCHU out of Valdez, but the few people in "downtown" Slana where we lived could not receive either station. Too much static. Several different types of antennae had all been tried to no avail. Someone from KCAM personally came and checked out the problem. So, I relied on my cassette tapes for company.

My cassette collection started out with the ones Gary and I had bought new in the 1980s, but I added more from thrift store and garage sale shopping. By the early 2000s, people preferred CDs and the glut of cassettes were sold cheap. Slana didn't have many garage sales, but one summer two long-time residents decided to sell out and move to the Lower 48. They each had the kinds of music I like (country, oldies, Celtic, big band, hymns and praise, and instrumental) so I really stocked up at $1 each. Now my huge collection is contained in several fake woodgrain cassette holders (which I also bought at thrift stores during our snowbird years) and grouped in categories and labeled for easy locating.

When sorting our belongings one summer, I found an old shoebox of cassettes on which Gary had recorded many hours of San Francisco music radio stations during the time we lived in that area in the mid-1970s. I decided to listen to the tapes before throwing them away. I enjoyed them so much, I never did get rid of them. In between "oldies" and "easy rock" songs were commercials, DJ commentaries, and news blurbs. One DJ said, "After a weekend at St. Simons Island in Georgia, President Carter returned to Washington, D.C. this evening and immediately began preparing for a meeting tomorrow with Israeli Menachem Begin."

Thirty years later, it was just like listening to a real radio station, only wrong president and I didn't have a one-year-old playing at my feet.

When our son was in high school in the early 1990s, he started purchasing CDs and tried to persuade us how they were so much better than cassettes, and that Gary and I needed to switch over. I brought up 8-tracks and said CDs needed to prove themselves first and insisted that cassettes tapes would be all we'd need for our lifetime. Then five years later Gary decided to buy a CD player and a few CDs. Gradually we acquired a few more here and there. Now they are available as cheap as the cassettes used to be.

I'm aware there is a whole world of iPods, iPads, tablets, smart phones, streaming, apps, and other devices and formats that I know nothing about. I admit to also listening to music through my Direct TV service and I tune into the local Big Cabbage 89.5 radio station more than once a day, as well as Casey Kasem's weekly American Top 40 countdown every Saturday morning on Anchorage radio station Magic 98.9. But with all my vintage music playing capabilities, I am perfectly content living in the old-fashioned music world I'm most comfortable in. Finding out our daughter-in-law gave our son a record player and some vinyl this past Christmas, put a smile on my face as well.

Maraley McMichael is a lifelong Alaskan now residing in Palmer. Email her at maraleymcmichael@gmail.com.