Random Thoughts from a Random Memory - My World of Audio

By Edward Master

I cannot claim to be an audiophile to any degree at all. My experience in audio probably dates back to an old 33 RPM of the three bears Christmas or something. And, believe or not smashing old LPs found in an old corn crib across the road in the Shirey house in Turkey City. On a rainy day when a group of us kids got out of the rain into the old corn crib building of the long-abandoned house, we thought it would be fun to smash up this old pile of records.

We tossed them in the air to see how far they would sail and then what remained was broken into pieces. I can’t imagine their worth, if any, today. What a shame though. Do we write it off to, “we were just kids?” Maybe.

I didn’t have much connection to audio after a transistor radio for the 1960 World Series until I started buying ‘greatest hits’ record albums around freshman year in college. That lasted until one summer I bought a stereo system that let me record 8-track audio tapes. Greg Whitmer solved my 8-track dilemma for my car.

I was living out east, teaching school, near Allentown, driving a Gremlin 3-speed, standard-shift on the floor. At the time, Greg was working for a sheet metal place near Franklin. He fashioned an 8-track holder from sheet metal, mounted it on the Gremlin’s floor with a few screws and away I went. I had that mount for the life of the car. I think he hooked up the speakers through the radio speakers. The only problem with that 8-track was cross-over play between tracks. I did the 8-track thing until I got a truck with a cassette player built in. Problem solved. I had a disc player in my last car that I hardly ever used, but I didn’t use the radio much either.

When I was in college, I did have a secret source to hot albums and the top of the pops... my Brother Jack. He was living in California, mostly in the bay area. He had an unlimited access to ‘Tower Records’ a gold mine of LPs. He sent me CCR (Creedence Clearwater) albums before anyone knew who CCR was on the east coast. That went on for a couple of years. I think Tower Records no longer exists, anywhere.

My record collection, mostly LPs, lies somewhere in my sister Shari’s basement. I guess my wife and I bought most of what everyone else did: Bruce Springsteen in the USA, Saturday Night Fever, etc.

I addressed one problem with having a TV, stereo, and video disc player with the only construction project of my life: I built a set of modules from wood for the front room of our house in Glassboro, NJ. I bought the wood, stained it, and bang, bang, boom with some elbow grease and voila I had new furniture. We set five square modules at the west end of the front room: one (in the middle) for the TV with storage for video discs underneath, one for a stereo on the right, and one for the video disc player on the left. We had storage for record albums, too.

My only complaint about the job was that I should have bought myself a power drill instead screwing in the wood screws by hand. I had a power saw and sander already. Live and learn with hand cramps I guess. I will say though that those modules lasted for quite awhile.

My only regret in the world of audio is that I never pursued a position as a DJ on the college radio station. I think I would have enjoyed that. I ended up as a communications major in grad school so that would have been a nice fit. Well, hindsight is 20-20.