Sally Breslin: My Life

Monday, October 21, 2024

I'M STILL USING MY DINOSAUR-ERA BOOM BOX!

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated with tape recorders.

I can remember back when I was about 15 and decided to form a band. I’d written a song and learned how to play two chords on the guitar, then taught the song to my friends Sue and Dee. Even though we sounded pretty much like a trio of wild geese when we sang, we were positive we were ready to make a demo tape to send out to record producers.

Back then, reel-to-reel tape recorders were just becoming all the rage. The only problem was, they were expensive, costing hundreds of dollars. I was so determined, however, to get a recorder for my band’s demo tape, I started to save my pennies for a $600 one I’d seen in Radio Shack.

Probably because he figured I’d be ready for Medicare by the time I saved up enough money, my father finally took pity on me and surprised me by renting a recorder for us kids to use for a week. I suspect it was because he figured if we finally recorded our demo tape, we no longer would be spending two hours after school every day practicing that one song…and then his ears could stop bleeding.

The minute I touched that tape recorder, I was hooked. I loved being able to hear my own voice, tape my favorite songs and even act out skits like those on the old radio shows. I nearly cried when my father had to return that precious machine to the rental place at the end of the week.

Over the next few years, I owned several tape recorders: a huge reel-to-reel one that weighed about 50 pounds, a small reel-to-reel one about the size of a box of chocolates, and finally, a cassette recorder. The cassette recorder was in the form of a big boom box, as they were called back then. It had a built-in radio and a cassette recorder and player. When the six D-cell batteries were in it, it weighed about as much as a small car.

I loved that boom box. I would spend hours recording songs from the radio or playing records and singing along with them on tape. While I was singing, I was certain I sounded as good as the next Streisand or Cher, but when I later listened back to my best efforts, I was certain someone had stolen my original cassette and replaced it with a tape of cattle being branded.

A few years ago, I was searching for an old storage chest of Christmas decorations down in the basement when I came across my ancient G.E. boom box behind a stack of boxes. I hadn’t seen it in years, and was disappointed it hadn’t aged well. It was dirty, rusty, the antenna was missing, the buttons on the recorder were bent and were so corroded, they wouldn’t push down, and the batteries in it were covered in what looked like a furry white fungus.

A flood of memories came back to me and I found myself wishing I could use that old boom box again. But my common sense told me the only place it was going to end up probably was in the bottom of a trash bin.

About a week later, I happened to be driving through Pembroke Village when I saw a store called Bobby Dee’s Records. In the window was a sign that said they repaired audio equipment. My thoughts immediately turned to my beloved boom box. Even though I figured the repair guy probably would point at it and laugh hysterically, I decided I had nothing to lose by asking if, by some miracle, it could be fixed. The next day, I, lugged the boom box into the store.

“Is there any hope at all for this?” I asked the man who greeted me. He turned out to be Bobby Dee.

He took the boom box from me and checked a few things on it.

“This is a great model,” he said. “One of the best ever made for sound quality.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve owned a few others since this one, but nothing compares. Do you think it can be saved?”

“Well, it’s in pretty rough shape,” he said. “In fact, it probably should have been given its last rites a long time ago. But I can tell you really care about it. So I'll see what I can do."

At least I left there with some hope that all was not lost...at least not yet. Bobby said he would call and let me know the verdict.

I didn’t expect to hear from him for at least a month, considering the sad condition of the recorder, but he called only a day later to ask if I could drop by the store. His tone of voice pretty much told me my boom box should be measured for a coffin.

When I walked into the store, Bobby told me to have a seat and close my eyes. I did, and he put the boom box on my lap. When I opened my eyes, I was speechless (which was pretty unusual for me). It looked like a new machine – polished, shiny, a new antenna, a new cord, and when I pressed the buttons on it, they all pushed easily.

"It's as good as new," he told me. "Plays like a dream."

That night, I dug out some of my old cassette tapes and listened to them. The sound quality of my boom box was even better than it had been when it was brand new. I tried recording a few songs from my computer, and it taped them perfectly.

It even made my old copy of my band's demo tape, which I long ago had transferred from a reel-to-real tape to a cassette, sound...nearly tolerable.

A few days later, I woke up feeling as if I were coming down with something. My throat hurt, my neck was sore and my voice was hoarse. I groaned, certain I was getting either a cold or the flu, or maybe even something like strep throat. I went back to bed in an attempt to fight it off.

I felt much better after a few hours of sleep, and that’s when the cause of my sore throat dawned on me. I burst out laughing.

I’d spent the night before playing with my boom box, just like old times, taping myself as I sang along with a variety of songs. Then after I’d had a good laugh listening to myself, I'd erase the songs and record myself singing even more of them. Before I knew it, hours had passed.

My sore throat turned out to be nothing more than a bad case of voice strain.

I blame Mariah Carey, Adele, Janis Joplin and Michael Bolton. No mortal human my age ever should attempt to sing along with them and try to reach those high notes. It’s a wonder I didn’t rupture something.

But I’m pleased to say that as of today, I’m still using that same boom box and it’s working just fine. I like to record songs on it from my computer and then pop the cassette into my trusty old Sony Walkman before I head out for my daily walk.

Yeah, I already know, so you don’t have to tell me…I’m a dinosaur.

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Monday, October 14, 2024

TIME TO DIG OUT MY FLUORESCENT ORANGE WARDROBE

I was telling one of my neighbors the other day I have seen more deer on my land and during my walks in the woods this year than in all of the past years combined.

“Well, I’ll bet you won’t be seeing any more deer now until at least January,” he said. “It’s hunting season, and the deer instinctively know it, so they’ll make themselves scarce.”

I could just picture the deer gathered around a calendar nailed to a tree in the woods and saying, “Yep, Bambi, it’s hunting season, all right. Come on, we’d better head on down to the hideout now and lay low until January.”

“Is it really hunting season already?” I asked.

My neighbor nodded. “Bow and arrow. Then in late October it’s muzzleloaders, and finally regular firearms. If you’re going out walking in the woods, you’d better wear bright red or orange, just to be safe. You don’t want to end up with an arrow in your butt.”

I groaned. Every year at this time, I have to don my Great Pumpkin outfit, which consists of so much fluorescent orange, I swear people all the way up in Quebec can see me.

Even worse, I also have to deck out my dogs in orange, especially since I was warned on more than one occasion that my Rottweiler looks like a deer from a distance. I’ve never seen an all-black deer with a tan face and a Sumo wrestler's body like my Rottweiler has, but then, I’m not a hunter.

So I bought orange vests, orange bandanas, and even orange collars for my dogs, just to be safe. If I could hook up flashing neon lights that spell out “DOG” and hang those on their backs, I’d probably do that, too.

Years ago, I used to bring a boom box with me on my daily hikes and blast rock-music so hunters would hear me approaching and not mistake me for a deer. I’d thought it was a pretty good idea…until I mentioned it to my husband one day.

“You go around making all of that noise in the woods?” he asked. “It’s a wonder the hunters don’t shoot you for scaring all of their deer away!”

That probably would explain why I thought I heard a bush cursing at me one morning.

The thing I like about deer hunters is they usually wear bright orange, too, so I can spot them from a distance and not be startled by them. Bird hunters, on the other hand, in their camouflage outfits, blend right in with the scenery and become invisible. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been out hiking and walked by a tree trunk that suddenly said hello to me. The first time it happened, I nearly needed a change of underwear.

Over the years, however, I have learned how to tell when hunters are around so I can keep an eye out for them. First of all, there will be pickup trucks parked along the edge of the woods. You can just about guarantee that for each one of those trucks, there will be at least one weapon-toting person roaming around.

And then there is the toilet paper. During hunting season, clumps of it seem to magically appear in the woods along the trails. I’ve never actually witnessed how the toilet paper got there (and I pray I never will), but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t due to the animals being on a sudden personal-hygiene kick, like those cartoon bears that wipe with Charmin in the TV commercials.

Of course, when there’s snow on the ground, it’s a snap to tell where the hunters are because their footprints are a dead giveaway. I don’t know if this is a proven scientific fact or not, but I have noticed, from years of studying hunters’ footprints in the snow, that most of them walk with their right foot turned outward.

I don’t know which is weirder…the fact that they walk with their right foot turned outward…or the fact I even noticed.

So as much as we hate to, my dogs and I will be wearing our bright orange ensembles for the next couple of months. That way, we hopefully will be able to make it through another hunting season with all of our body parts still intact.

That is, unless we happen to startle a hunter who's actually in the process of using some of that toilet paper (and by “startle,” I mean my dogs have really cold noses).

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Monday, October 7, 2024

DO YOU REMEMBER THOSE ORIGINAL ONLINE CHAT ROOMS?

I belong to a website called Reddit, which hosts groups pertaining to every topic imaginable – from unrequited love to cats doing crazy things and authors looking for publishers. Each group has moderators – people who decide which posts will or will not be allowed, particularly if the people posting don’t stick to the main subject of the group.

I’ve joined several writers’ and authors’ groups on Reddit and so far, they have provided a wealth of information. Any questions I might have, such as “What is the best way to promote your book when your funds are limited?” usually receive prompt, helpful responses.

When I was browsing on Reddit earlier today, I couldn’t help but think back to over 25 years ago when I bought my first computer and decided to enter one of the early “chat rooms,” where people who shared similar interests could gather anonymously online to discuss various topics. It was kind of like an early form of group texting.

The first thing I had to do was select the type of chat room I wanted to enter. The list was endless, with every topic imaginable: Divorced Ladies, Married and Looking (for what?), Schmooz Fest, Fans of Elvis, Oldies Music and Authors’ Lounge, to name just a few of the hundreds.

I thought Authors’ Lounge sounded intriguing, so I checked out the description. It said it was a gathering place for authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, journalists, poets, and writing instructors to share their ideas. Encouraged, I entered the “room,” hoping to learn a few new things about writing.

Entering a chat room for the first time was sort of like being in one of those old western movies where you’re the stranger in town, walking into the local saloon.

The authors’ chat room already had 19 people chatting in it, most of whom seemed to know each other. They had catchy little on-screen names such as, “Over-the-hill-Lil,” “YoYoBozo,” “DroopyDraws” and “Rubberduckie," and were in the midst of a heated discussion when I first popped in.

“It does TOO hurt to have an ingrown toenail removed,” one chatter was saying. “I can hardly walk!”

“Aw, you’re just a big sissy!” another wrote back. “I had all of my toenails removed on my right foot and was wearing my steel-toed work boots the next morning!”

“Hey, we’re not here to talk about your feet!” another chatter interrupted. “Is anyone here a Steinbeck fan?”

“Oh, shut up!” came the response. “Who cares about Steinbeck when my toe is swollen to the size of a banana?”

I sat silently following the conversation for several minutes, thinking I’d entered the wrong room. Not only was no one was chatting about writing, everyone kept using mysterious abbreviations I’d never seen before, like “LMHO” and “BRB.” Finally, I couldn’t stand the curiosity any longer. I gathered my courage and typed my first question: “What do LMHO and BRB stand for?”

“‘Laughing my head off’ and ‘be right back’,” came about 10 replies. (Some of them also used “LMAO,” but I figured it might be best not to ask about the letter “A” in that one).

Another new chatter popped into the room. “Hello,” he or she said. “I’m 17 and I write poetry. My friends say I’m a real natural when it comes to writing. Anyone here know where I can get my poems published? What's your advice?"

“My advice is to learn to write something else!” came one suggestion. “You’ll never get anywhere with poetry.”

“Only sissies write poetry,” said the same person who’d just called the ingrown-toenail person a sissy.

“Yeah! Learn to write true-crime stories,” someone else chimed in. “Nothing captures a reader’s attention like a decapitated human head rolling down a hill!”

“Eeeeyuuuw!” came another response. “That’s gross!”

“But I enjoy writing poetry,” the young writer defended. “I write all about love!”

“Love??” another chatter shot back (and I swear this is an exact quote). “Love is nothing but a big pile of doggie doo-doo.”

Finally another chatter dared to ask, “Is anyone here REALLY a writer?”

I was thinking the same thing. And there obviously were no moderators back then who were keeping the discussions limited to the main topic.

“I once wrote a biography about Princess Diana,” came one answer.

“And I have four novels on the bestseller list,” boasted another.

“Yeah, right, and I’m Stephen King’s twin sister, Stephanie!” said yet another. “I taught him everything he knows!”

“I can’t write and I hate reading,” another chatter wrote. “And I think all writers are really boring!”

“Then what the heck are you doing in this chat room?” came the immediate response.

“Looking for girls!” he answered. “Anyone here single and available?”

“Go to the ‘Looking for Romance’ chat room,” someone suggested.

“I just came from there,” he answered. “It’s full of other guys looking for girls!”

“My mother is single and available,” one chatter offered. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen,” he responded.

I’d seen just about enough. Foolishly, I decided to jump in with, “I write a weekly humor column. Anyone have any ideas for a topic I can write about this week?”

“Yeah, write about what it would be like to be decapitated,” said the aforementioned would-be ax-murderer. “Think of how funny it would be to run around looking for your head!”

“Dummy!” someone wrote back. “How could you look for anything if you didn’t have a head?”

“Write about that stupid woman on the reality TV show who married the multi-millionaire, sight unseen,” came another suggestion.

“She wasn’t stupid!” another argued. “HE was the stupid one! At least she ended up with some money. All men are pigs! As I said before, love is nothing but a big pile of doggie doo-doo!”

“Write about all of the crazy people you find in chat rooms,” came one last suggestion in answer to my question.

Not a bad idea.

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