VAGUE MEMORIES

I don't know why I think of the things I do.  I'm not sure many can relate to this but I was thinking, the other day, about phonograph records and how we played them.  Good record players in the sixties and seventies, now called turntables, had a tone arm with a replaceable stylus that was tipped with a gem like sapphire.  The stylus (sometimes just called the needle) pulls the music out of the grooves of the vinyl disc we called a record - really a phonograph record.  Anyway, it was obviously a rather crude method of making noise but it worked well for the times.  It worked well, that is, until the needle was worn.  Then the needle would tend to jump out of the groove it was playing into another or it would jump because of a scratch back into the same groove it had just played.  If anyone ever says you sound like a broken record, they mean you keep saying the same thing over and over again like a record with a scratch. 

Well, with all this background I'll tell you what I was thinking about.  When a record wasn't playing real well, jumping tracks or repeating tracks, we would put weight on the end of the tone arm.  It was done with coins and Scotch tape.  Start with a dime, then a penny  and then a nickle.  If you were poor like me, you started with the penny and then added a second or a third if you need more weight.  It actually worked for awhile.  Eventually, you would have to go buy a new needle or throw the record away.  Why I thought of this I have no idea.
:-)