I’ve said it many times. My parents were classy hoarders. What is a classy hoarder? Not sure there is a good definition but you would never guess they were hoarders at all when you stopped by their house.
It was neat, clean and well appointed and definitely had a lot of stuff in it but nothing cluttered the hallways or the kitchen. The closets, the basement and the garage however were stuffed.
I have talked before about the things we found that had us scratching our heads like a bottle of headstone cleaner and clothes marked “do not fit” and a box of Black Friday Advertisements that were 4 years old and yet there were a ton of treasures . Old photos and letters and lots of memories.
One of those treasures was my grandmother’s old record player/radio that provided endless entertainment for me when I would visit her in Pennsylvania.
I tried to get it repaired but the cost outweighed the sentimental value.
Still I had all these old 45’s that I really wanted to play. I almost went ahead with the very $$$ repair when I found a brand new record player for $15 at an estate sale. Those old records may be too old to play but for $15 I could take the chance. So off I trotted with my new found treasure.
And then my heart leaped a bit as all the records worked with the familiar scratchy sound of the needle at the beginning and those memories came flooding back as I listened to my grandparents and my parents favorites. Truly old classics like Patty Page and Bing Crosby and my parent’s song “The Tennessee Waltz”
What a gift.
I was going back to the estate sale the next day to see if the 45’s that were next to the record player were still there when Paul stopped me. Turns out there was a whole box of them in our garage. For whatever wonderful reason we did not get rid of them when we cleaned out my parents house. I was thrown back to being a pre-teen and a teenager as the record player cranked out memory after memory and somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain I remembered every word and sang along.
I also drove Paul nuts 🙂
And then the piece de resistance. Thanks to the Navy we were based in Hawaii for 3 years. well I was there and so was our daughter Sarah and eventually Julie. Paul spent a lot of his time on Navy Deployments and TDY’s ( Temporary Duty Assignments) far away from home.
We loved this one Hawaiian Duo, The Beamer Brothers. We especially loved the song ” Sea Breeze” and that was the album we found. How it got carted from one house to the next, across oceans and no less than 6 moves or more and survived is beyond me. It had me at the first note. Suddenly we were 26 years old living in Hawaii. Paul was either in the Philippines or Okinawa or the middle of the Indian Ocean and we were missing each other terribly. We could only communicate via letter ( no e-mail or texts) and this song touched our hearts. It was a life experience that taught me so much and I am forever grateful.
Yes I could get all this music as a download and listen on bluetooth but it loses something in the experience.
In the meantime here is a bit of my favorite song. Listen carefully…the words are perfect for a young couple far apart from one another and wishing it was otherwise. 🙂
Also I guess in a way we are classy hoarders as well. That makes me smile.
Here’s to classy hoarders…we make memories come to life.
And as always, keep triing!
Jennifer