three 45's

when i turned 12 in 1983 i got a really cool stereo for my birthday. it had a cassette player that came out like a little drawer, and did the "soft eject" thing rather than the "pop" that most cassette players did at the time. it had a turntable and radio too, of course. while i'd had a crappy tape player, an alarm clock radio and plastic record player, it wasn't all like having one 'nice' unit like this - and, it was MINE - something rare in a big family. no one was allowed to touch it unless i said so.

anyhow, when i went with my mom to pick it out, i got to pick out three 45's too - they were three for $5 - and it was painful to only pick three. today i heard "Major Tom (coming home)" by Peter Schilling on the radio, which was one of the three 45's, along with "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel, and "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie. while the latter two don't excite me today (though both are fine songs, i suppose), "Major Tom" is still one i love to happen upon on the radio. all three were played ad nauseam, since they were all i had until i saved up another $5...which took a while.

oh, i got a black light too that year, which i hung above my bed and put glow-in-the-dark feet stickers on it so they glowed at night after i turned it off...but that is a whole other story.