Friday Flashback (in stereo)

Tori bought herself some new headphones this week. She loves music. When I was 15, the smaller the headphones the better; remember the not-so-little ear plugs that came with transistor radios? Remember transistor radios?! Even the only slightly larger foam headphones that came with my Sony Walkman cassette player seemed huge. Well let me tell ya, small is out. These big phones (Skullcandy Ti) Tori bought, and wears around her neck like jewelery look more like a neck brace - they certainly aren't the discrete little earbuds that I would have thought were awesome. No, bigger it seems, is making a comeback.

Growing up, we had a huge Zenith Hi-Fi console. Danish modern - all blond wood and wheat coloured speaker fabric, with about 30 years worth of weekly Pledge. It glowed. The stereo was bigger than the tv, and the television was no slouch size-wise either! It didn't look exactly like this one; the speakers went across the bottom instead of at the sides. The right side had a hinged lid that opened to reveal a turntable and a little wire rack to hold 45s and albums. The left side had a pull out drawer thing that had a tuner inside - we could get AM, FM, even shortwave on that behemoth though I rarely remember hearing the radio from this. That was the job of the little silver transistor cassette player in the kitchen. My friend Glynnis' family had the identical system, in walnut (and their transistor was black.)

I remember a family trip to Toronto once with the almost exclusive purpose of buying a needle for the record player and some tubes for the tuner. In spite of that, I rarely remember it being used for more that a piece of furniture.

My dad was a trying-to-quit smoker who bought his cigarettes by the carton on the nearby Six Nations Reservation. Even in the 70s it was cheaper to get your smokes and gas on the reserve. He'd come home with a carton, and we would be set to the task of hiding two of the packs. One was always hidden in the bookcase with the encyclopedias, the other always went into the tuner of the Hi-Fi.

I'm sure mom doesn't have this anymore, it no doubt got passed on or tossed out long ago. Tori would have loved it.