When I moved in, this little Magnavox stereo was being used as a nightstand. My mom and I shuffled it out to the living room and gave it a whirl (probably for the first time in 40 years). She ran a touch slow, but I’ll tell you the first few weeks I stayed in the house (sans internet and television) having it to play the Godspell soundtrack was my saving grace. It was a pretty emotional time, so filling up the house with “You Are the Light of the World” and “Day by Day” really gave it (and me) some life.
But after a few months, the slow turntable was getting worse, and playing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” at half speed was pretty spooky. Because she’s the greatest, my aunt took the hi-fi in for repairs as a birthday gift. It took two months for the repairman to sort the thing out, during which we found out that this 60-year-old hi-fi is pretty rare. He also discovered that no matter how hard he tried, that old turntable wouldn’t keep spinning at that 33 1/3 rpm-s that you need. In the end, he dropped in a new turntable; better a new functioning one than an aggravatingly slow original. It made me a little sad to see the original one go, but I have to tell myself that a new, fully-functional table is better than some groggy, never-quite-right original.
Having this record player fixed has been such a huge treat. It’s pretty much the peice de résistance of the living room, and now I can play my Cat Stevens albums to my heart’s content, and when our friends come over, we invite them to peruse our small but well-loved collection and crank the tunes.
It’s the little things, kits.
And I wanted to add that the clever title came from my mom. She remembers a stereo shop called Hi-Fi Fo-Fum growing up (she also remembers pretending this record player was a piano when she was little – talk about a good memory).
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