Back In Time

Technology in “The Good Old Days”, “It was so much easier”, we hear so many people comparing, including myself. I often think about the music I used to listen to on my record player, or cassette tapes and CD’s.  How easy it was to just put on a record, something tangible to look through and pick out from the colourful selection, neatly stored in the record box, instead of downloading music like we have to do today, and wishing that you could remember every song that you used to listen to, not to mention charging the speaker, or going to your playlist to find that your Ipad has 2% battery, forgetting passwords which allow you to buy more music, and so on, it all seems so much hard work, not like just putting on an LP which would play for about half an hour before it came to the end and you could just turn it over. Or stacking up some 45’s that just dropped down and played on their own, as you carried on with whatever you were doing.

 

The other day, I actually came across some boxes that I had kept in the shed, full of my old records that were once stored in a cupboard under the stairs in a house that I moved from many years ago.  I had quite a few.  I thought it was time to sort them out, there may be some valuable ones there, or I could just give some to a charity shop, or even use them myself like I said I would when my son bought me a new updated record player for my birthday a few years ago, as he saw that I had so many old records. Yes, I thought, I would definitely get my record player out and put it in the dining room, and use that instead of all this modern technology that I found hard to deal with. I couldn’t wait to play my records, it is going to be so much easier, I could go back in time, reminiscing.

 

The day came when I set up my record player and cleaned some mould off and anti-backed my old records that I hadn’t seen for many years. I had to throw away some of the record cover sleeves on the 45’s as it looked like mice had eaten some of the corners, and the damp smell was definitely a No-no.  The LP’s however, were still in quite good shape. As I sorted through them they brought back so many memories, I was so excited to play them. 

 

Here goes, I picked out one, which I used to play all the time in my bedroom when I lived at home.  I would just leave the arm of the record player up and it would automatically play the record again, it would drive my parents mad as it played the same song over and over. 

 

In reality, to my total disappointment, most of my records were so scratched I could hardly hear them, the speakers on the record player didn’t help as they were from an old computer that I had, and some records were in mono, so the sound wasn’t great. Also, the records that I loved all those years ago, I didn’t seem so keen on anymore.  They were for then, not now. And some of the memories I would rather forget, to be honest. Not such a good idea after all. It didn’t last long, about 5 minutes in fact, before I got ruthless and sorted through about 250 records, to just a small handful of a selection to keep, for the sake of it. 

 

I will never complain about our modern day technology again.  I love my IPad, and my playlists, and downloading music, and I really don’t mind if I can’t find my charger, I can always buy another one.

 

I was a PA Secretary in a Law firm in London in the 70’s and used a manual typewriter at the time.  When electric typewriters came in, I never thought I would ever get used to them.  Yet look how many best sellers were written in the past on manual typewriters.  

 

Give me my computer any day. 

 

God bless.

 

  

Derrice has written a book called “Glenna’s Angel – a Miracle from God” which is a true testimony of her mother’s encounter with an Angel in an ambulance when she was instantly healed by God, in answer to prayer.  She has also written articles for Church magazines and newsletters.