Recently, I’ve been visiting the minutiae of history a little more than usual.
Some of my readers may be aware that I’m a a big music fan, and have collected music in various formats over most of my life. While it’s often digital these days, I’ve also been known to buy (or sell) the occasional record on eBay.
Bottom line, when my wife and I retire to Thailand one day, I plan to have a nice little vinyl collection to occupy my time. She thinks this is a bit nutty, and she’s probably right, but sound quality matters to music nuts. What can I say? I’m nostalgic when it comes to this stuff.
Down the Rabbit Hole
In addition to spending more time than usual on records, I’ve also gone down a bit of a JFK assassination rabbit hole as of late.
Now, I know that sounds truly nutty, but bear with me here.
Last week I wrote a post that was, in part, about growing up 1/4 Russian in the 70s and 80s. References to Russkies were made. The current Ukraine crisis makes me feel bad on a few levels—for example, I may have some relatives in Kyiv whom I’ve never met—but it also ties into the JFK rabbit hole.
Having been born in November 1964, slightly less than one year after JFK’s death, I’ve been fascinated with the assassination for years. I should hasten to add that I’m not obsessed with solving it, but I’ve read a few books on the subject, including the very fine JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W, Douglass.
There are many ties to Russia in the Lee Harvey Oswald story, and, having lived in Tampa for years, I’m also aware of some peripheral characters with connections to the JFK saga and its many possible conspiracies: persons dead (Santo Trafficante, Jr., who headed the Florida mob for years) and living (a person with multiple CIA connections whom I won’t name, but who moved to St. Pete in later years). Suffice to say, the more you YouTube, the more YouTube finds other videos for you.
“Golden In Time”
But back to the topic of records. I was listening to some comedians talking music on a podcast, and they mentioned how anyone under 30 might only be aware of recent rappers. Their frame of reference was so narrow, in other words, that anything prior to the 21st century was utterly foreign to them.
The conversation reminded me of a show I watched recently where a kid thought old cassette tapes were something antique he’d heard of…called an iPod?
Funny or not, I sometimes have to remind myself that 1992 was 30 years ago. So my favorite 1960s to 1980s music is really old now. And, just as the frame of reference for music shrinks over time, so does that of history. The world I saw recently on YouTube videos—with its tapes, records, and handheld cameras—seems to be vanishing at an ever-increasing rate.
Maybe that’s the way it’s always been, or maybe time merely moves more quickly as you age. Whatever the case, I’m glad I’ve got to live, as they say, in interesting times.
