Music Helped Me Make It Through the Night: Tales of the Turntable

Shortly after my senior year in high school I moved in with my grandparents. I went from being one of 5 children (3 girls sharing one bedroom!) in a rather busy household to being the 'only' living with my grandparents. I traded a twin bed in a crowded room and a bathroom I shared with two other adolescent girls (with a very small mirror) to having a room to myself with a double bed, and a large bathroom that rarely was used by anyone but me.

My grandparents had a lifestyle that had its pros and cons, since they weren't often home. They spent a good portion of the year either at their cabin near Cloquet or at their winter home in McAllen, Texas - right at the Mexican border. They would leave for the cabin in late spring as soon as it was warm, and occasionally come home on weekends for functions, doctor visits, etc. Then they'd go back up north until it was time to shut the cabin up for the winter, which was usually Labor Day weekend. Then right after Christmas they would head south, not to be seen again until shortly before Easter.

That meant I was home alone. A lot. And while I enjoyed the freedom and the privacy, after living in a very active house and sharing a bedroom, it took quite a bit to adjust. I don't know that I ever did. Funny, except for a short time after graduating from college when my roommate moved out and I had an apartment to myself, I've never lived alone since.

Turns out I have trouble falling asleep when no one is home, and no one is expected home. (A number of years after I got married, John went to Scotland for a study program for nearly 3 weeks. I was a wreck. I wrapped his pillow in a t-shirt I pulled out of the dirty laundry and slept on that pillow the whole time he was gone.)

It was a very pronounced issue in that house, as my bedroom was on the second floor. Of course, any noises downstairs (usually from the cat) bothered me. So I learned to cope by two things: leaving lights on everywhere, and having music playing. I still enjoy having music on when I am home alone, which is most of the time these days. But now the source is Alexa - she has my playlists and it's as easy as telling her to play one of them. Or stream random music.

But in those days it wasn't so easy. This was before the days of the cassette tapes and portable tape players you could take anywhere.

The source of music in my grandparents' house was a very large hi-fi unit in the living room by the front door, about the furthest away from my upstairs bedroom as you could get without going down in the basement. The record storage bin next to the turntable was filled with a mix of genres - my grandpa's favorite classics, my grandmother's collection of Nat King Cole and Mitch Miller, and my eclectic stash of current music - everything from Crosby Stills to the Beach Boys to Jefferson Airplane to Fleetwood Mac to John Denver.

The unit had a wonderful feature - automatic changer. You could stack the vinyl on the center pin and once you started the lowest record playing, it would just move through them. Once a record was finished, the needle arm would pull out, the next record would drop down, and the needle would go back in place. It was fantastic! Once I figured out just how many records the turntable would hold, I could have music almost all night long. Of course, I also had to figure out which albums would help me sleep and which ones would make me want to get up and dance. And there was something very reassuring about hearing the click that meant the next album was dropping down and new music was about to start.

Sure, it's easier now to ask Alexa to play my favorite music rather than loading up the turntable, but I miss that old music delivery system. I knew those songs by heart, and if I were to stay awake long enough, I always knew which song was coming up next. With my multiple play lists, I never know what Alexa is going to play next. But that's fine, because the music is just for background ambiance and not getting me to sleep.

For that Alexa shares ocean sounds and falling rain. Funny, Nat King Cole's 'Mona Lisa' and Harry Bellafonte's 'Jamaica Farewell' still relax me. They are on my 'oldies' playlist. Along with a lot of songs that were in my album collection in that old hi-fi unit.