"What the heck?"

Seriously, how could I possibly pass up a beauty like this. This is almost exactly what mine looks like. Ya baby!

"What the heck?" That's the first thing that came out of my kids' mouths when they saw the old record player I had been given at school. I have been looking for one for awhile, but not hard enough to find one. I haven't wanted to buy one so that made the search a little more difficult. But, on Thursday, after school, I just happened to walk into the office at the exact moment that another teacher was asking our principal what to do with an old, ugly, and dusty record player that had come with her room. He said she could find someone to take it or give it to DI. I was so excited. "Pick me! Pick me!" I hollered while waving my arm in the air (a technique I've picked up from 2nd graders). Since I was the only one interested, I got it - much to my husband's dismay, I think. We didn't even know if it worked but lucky for all of us it does. It has a great sound (for a record player) and can play at four different speeds. The kids have loved that.

The girls asked some interesting questions about it. "What does it do?" "Is it a giant CD player?" "Did everyone have one of these?" "Could you carry it around with you?" "Where does the sound come from?" "Why does it sound so scratchy?" I tried to explain how it worked as best as I could. I told them about the hot pink record player my sister and I had. I told them about the Disney books on record and the many Donny and Marie albums I listened to. I wish I had been more careful and kept them. I'm sure they would have loved the Osmonds. Instead, we only had four records of E.B. White reading Charlotte's Web and one Bing Crosby singing Teddy Bear Picnic. Neither one was very exciting. We turned to Grandma, the woman who keeps everything.

Grandma had lots of records and we brought about half the pile home. The kids have had a blast listening to old Beach Boys, Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana Brass, Eddy Arnold, and even John Wayne speak-singing ten very interesting songs, and many more. (Why weren't my parents into Bread, Chicago, Crosby Stills and Nash, The Mamas and the Papas, and Creedance Clearwater Revival? All they liked was country and not the cool country of today.) But the kids have listened anyway. They've tried songs at various speeds making the same song have four very distinctive sounds - Wizard of Oz Lollipop Guild fast, normal, just-been-to-the-dentist slurred-speech slow, and Las Vegas exotic dancer slow. Tee Hee we've had fun. If it quit working today, we will have gotten a lifetime of fun from it already.

Now if I could only find an 8 Track player. That would be awesome!