10/17/2021
My friend Mary D. wrote lately—via email—that’s she’s been digging through old lectures on audio tapes and pushing buttons on a cassette tape recorder. Smile. I smile when I consider the electronics I’m surrounded by when I settle down for the night.
While I’m propped up in bed by three pillows, ready to tackle the day’s crossword puzzle (Friday and Saturday are the hardest), I have a portable radio turned on, tuned to MPR’s news or classical station, depending on my mood. Like an old tape recorder, you have to dig through the internet to find an old-fashioned radio.
But never mind. Next to the radio is my smartphone ready to serve as an alternative. I can get radio, read books, and watch movies on that. Resting beneath the smartphone is an e-reader, a Kindle called “Amazon Fire.” It’s a radio, it’s a computer, it’s an e-reader, it’s a movie watching device.
On the other side of the bed is a laptop, the “on” button still lit, read to go in case I want to look something up or check the latest headlines in the NY Times. Of Course, I can do that on my smartphone or e-reader as well. Of course.
On the dresser is an in-house audio device to which I can say, “Okay, Google. Play Bach partitas,” and what I want to hear magically begins. Or, I can listen to the radio on the smartphone or the e-reader and transfer the sound wirelessly to a high quality Boz speaker that will fill the bedroom with music or news.
All this brouhaha before bed compared to struggling with a tape recorder and cassette tapes. Forward, rewind. “Where was I on the tape? Oops. The tape came spinning out of the reel and got eaten somewhere inside the play back heads.”
All this brings back summers in the upstairs west room of the farmhouse where I grew up. I had an eight transistor radio—Wow! Eight transistors!—in a small real leather case. While everyone slept, I could listen to Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Chicago on AM radio. Tiny speaker. Tiny sound.
Plus, reading. Read a book with my little transistor radio on. Though it was as primitive as a tape recorder and cassette tapes, I felt on par with the newly minted astronauts.
Otherwise, old age and labor shortage has put me in the position where I may well close the restaurant for the winter during this coming week. I haven’t decided for sure, but it seems likely. Either the restaurant will sell in the meantime or I might be back in the spring when school is out and help is more available.
