The Records of History

The Residents of Riverside have yet to stop impressing me. I love going there in the mornings because everything is so low key. I go there to talk, spend time and to just brighten the day of anyone who so asks. Not only are they usually friendly they also have some of the most interesting stories and things to share. On Thursday I spent some time with this gentleman named Bob. He is in the process of digging out all of his old records and restoring them to their previous state. He began telling me about his first record player when he was a kid a 75 rpm (or something) record player and how the first records held only one or two songs and used only the one side. He pointed to an unopened box and said that they were records that had belonged to his mother. We spent the next half hour going through them and cleaning them up with these cool brushes.
I loved reading the labels, learning about artists I had never heard of and just finding out when and where they came from. One of the last records that I pulled out was a Christmas record. I could not believe my eyes when I read that it was released on December 3rd 1909. It was exactly 100 years to the day (well it was December 4th but close enough) that this record had been released amid Christmas cheer in New York City. How it made it into the hands of Bob’s mother he did not know but it really made me think of how our technology has changed in 100 short years. The change is incredible and I felt like I was holding a piece of history. We take for granted all of the things we have and we forget that not very long ago something as simple as a record was treasured beyond belief. For me this made me realize how quickly our lives change and that in no time at all our present will be history.