We got our turntable delivered last week. It is a Crosley reproduction of a record player that looks late sixties - which is the era I began to listen to records. I was nine years old when I bought my first 45. It was Sugar Sugar by the Archies from the Kentwood Pharmacy and dime-store, which was a pretty long bike ride from my house in those days. Mike Stipe from REM bought the same first record that year.

It has been interesting to see the younger three kids getting into playing records. An early Johnny Cash record seems to be a current favorite with Rain. Ballad of a Teenage Queen seems to hit her spot in a special way. It is such a different experience to spin a record than hearing music out of a computer. They seem to be worlds apart. Somehow it seems to be making the music physically present, the way a digital file does not.