Vinyl and Headphones...

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Way back in the day when my mom worked at the Bay in the electronics department, She was the top #1 sales woman... This is back when the Bay actually had sales commission and kick but stereos. One day she brought home a brand new 3 peice Stereo cabnets,Stereo and rocken speakers. The delivery guys/coworks moved the heavy stereo cabnets against the wall, then my mom set to work hooking up the stero, her fingers moving lightening fast, wires flying, speakers being put into place. It was all business and with in 30 minutes I was looking at a living room with shiney black speakers 3 feet tall 16 inches square , with a black mesh/cloth covering.I was amazed! There were rules to the stereo! Volume never higher than level 3 after 9 at night, during the day I could crank it to 5...7 made the walls vibrate, especially the living room windows. I learned how to put aa vinyl record onto a record player. Again there were rules, don't drop the arm onto the record, do it slowly. The needle was expensive diamond tip and it could scratch the vinyl records. Put the arm down gently. There was also this velvet brush with a solution to clean the records! My mom had bought me some records which was nice, I had Neil Diamond, Abba, Roger Whittaker, Chris Kristofferson... But I wanted records of my own choice. I busted my but doing chores and I made enough to get my own vinyl. I now had CCR, Pinkfloyd, George Therogood, Led Zepplin, Janis Joplyn to name a few. Then one day my mom brought home the top of the line "HeadPhones"! They came in a fancy box and when I opened it I saw stainless steal , leather and softe black mesh headphones. The leather smelled good and the steal felt cold. I put them on and the headphones and it was to big, my mom reached over and slid the metal bands and it fit snug. She was talking to me but it was muffled, the mesh/cloth was soft on my ears, padded, it was like wearing earmuffs. Then my mom grabbed the electic cord and undid the black twist tie and I discovered I have 15 feet of cord! One night when I was rocken to tunes, stretched out on the floor doing homework, my mom came to me and indicated to pop off the headphones and told me to close my eyes. Then she said Surprise! I saw a huge 6 ft white crotched polar bear, it had fancy loopy loops, a black nose and glass eyes,it was fat and soft! She plopped it down by the stereo on the thick chocolate brown rug. Then She said this is for you to lay down on when you listen to the stereo! She had been secretly making Mr Bear for me for a while and I felt so touched and special. I now could dance with my headphones on, sing out of tune and rock on with my headphones, I did have a whole 15 feet so I could really do some rocken dancing. It was totally awesome. Or I could flop down and lay on Mr Bear! I liked to lay there on Mr Bear at night with my headphones on, feeling the tunes go through me! I discovered I could record my records onto tapes, we did have dual tape slots, basically it was two tape slops, Tape A and Tape B. This meant I could record my records onto tapes and then take the the tape play it and record it on a different tape. I got good at this and soon I had a large selection of records and lots of tapes. This worked well for me since I couldn't take my records with me but I could take tapes though. So I had tunes where ever I would go. I loved laying on that polar bear, with my headphones on my head rocken to vinyl. There was something special about sliding that record out of the paper jacket, lifting it carefully onto the record player, dropping the arm down, seeing the record spin. I have soooo many wonderful memories of vinyl and headphones! Do you have fond memories of music in your life? Did you ever rock to with headphones on, bebopping to tunes?