For sale: One slightly used 8-track player from my youth

ATF off to great start with 1st show; Haze reminds us climate change is only issue

By Ken Tingley

There should be a constitutional requirement that each citizen conduct an annual garage sale.

We all have too much stuff.

That’s the reality.

The worst part is we don’t think we have too much stuff.

When we’re younger, we move, we change apartments, jobs and partners. It allowed us to travel light and shed possessions.

When I got married at the age of 25 I was proud I could fit all my belongings into a 1973 Plymouth Duster. Today, I would need a tractor trailer.

This past weekend I hosted a garage sale.

I vowed to be brutal as I sorted through boxes and possessions from a half-century ago. It was all going to go.

For some reason I kept every rejection letter I received from every newspaper I ever applied to for a job, including one from the Press-Republican in Plattsburgh. Four days after I received the rejection letter, they called me for an interview, then offered me a job.

There were letters from friends, girlfriends and family after I went to school in Kentucky. Then, I made the mistake of reading some of the old letters. One by one, they were pulled out of the trash bin. A couple hours later, my wife found me awash in a sea of paper and nostalgia.

Most of the old Life Magazines found their way into the trash, although a couple from the space race remained.

I was especially ruthless about the old newspapers I had been saving as clips in case I needed another job. Some went all the way back to college, others to more recent times in Glens Falls. There were many that chronicled history.

Finally, came the most difficult decision of all. At the bottom of the pile in an old box was my 8-track tape player from college. For the children out there, the 8-track was a magnetic-tape sound recording technology from the 1970s that followed vinyl records and preceded the smaller cassette tapes.

My 8-track player has been mostly dormant for the past 45 years until it found new life at a garage sale this past weekend.

The miracle of the 8-track was that, unlike your record player, you could put a player in your car, upgrade with a couple of Jensen speakers and tool around town listening to your favorite tunes.

When I headed off to college in 1977, I invested in a small player that found a home on the top shelf of my dorm-room bookcase. My tastes in music were still evolving in those college years, but Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffet, America, Steve Miller, Linda Ronstadt, Meatloaf, The Beach Boys, Rod Stewart and Elton John all were represented. My favorite 8-track tape story was of the “ABBA’s Greatest Hits” tape I hid under the front seat of the Duster. It was not cool for an adolescent male to like ABBA in those years - at least not among my friends - so I had to hide the tape and never admit to liking “Dancing Queen.”

While commuting to a tough part of Waterbury while attending the University of Connecticut branch, I had my tape player twice stolen from my car. My collection of tapes, too.

Tough times.

But it never stopped the tunes. We rigged up a device to slide the tape deck out from under the dashboard so it could be hid in the trunk while I was at class.

As I set up the garage sale, I had the best of intentions. I really did.

For the most part, my collection of 8-track tapes still worked and sounded just as good.

I put out the 8-track player and was pleasantly surprised when it clicked on. After initially hooking speaker wires to the wrong connections, I finally got it right. I put in Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” album - the first of my 29 Bruce concerts came in the fall of 1978 in Cincinnati - and the magical sounds of my youth filled the garage.

The rest of the setup went effortlessly.

When I left the garage that evening I was absolutely sure no one would want my old 8-track player.

The next morning, as the first wave of garage-sale-goers descended on my wares, I found one woman make a bee-line for the 8-track player. She looked at, marveled at the eclectic mix of tapes and then asked me the critical question, “How much?”

I told her I had the best of intentions.

I explained that this was the player that got me through those college years and beyond.

I told her the goal was for it all to be sold.

But then I started listening to the old tapes the day before.

The sound seemed better than anything digital today.

I told her I was having second thoughts, but I would entertain an offer.

“How much would it take,” she asked.

I hesitated.

What was my price on the past?

What compensation would allow me to put the past behind me.

“At least $100,” I said.

She laughed, knowing the 8-track wasn’t worth half that.

When she left. I popped in another tape.

Over the next four hours, I turned down two more offers.

Theater Festival debut

The Adirondack Theater Festival  kicked off its seasons with a a love story. And while the story of “The Last Wide Open” was told unconventionally, it delivered a great two hours of entertainment. ATF continues to deliver original material unlike anything we have seen before. And it was great to see the Wood Theater full on opening night.

Adirondack haze

The haze from the Canadian forest fires that settled over upstate New York is a metaphor of the issue of climate change. It brought the issue front and center to those of us used to experience crystal clear skies during the summer months.

It is shocking to me that climate change is not the ONLY issue on the agenda for every politician in the country.

Preorder Vol. 2

Something or Other Publishing is now taking preorders for my second volume of columns.

The preorders ($19.95) are important to authors like me. They provide the publisher with an idea of how many books to print and help with the future marketing of the book. You also get some extras if you order now:

• Buy one copy of the book now and get the ebook version of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

• Buy three copies (great presents) and get a print copy of Vol. 1, an ebook version of Vol. 2 and another three ebooks from the Something or Other Publishing catalog.

So many of you have been so kind about the first volume of columns and I suspect you will find the second book just as good.