The Land of Obsolete and Forgotten Things

For as long as I can remember, I have always had a soft spot for things that everyone else cast away as unusable trash. My quest to save obsolete goods started early in life. I can remember shimmying my way up into the attic as a wee lad of five to recover a Sony Turntable that had been packed away and rendered obsolete by the advent of Compact Disc. Oh, it was a glorious feeling, the feeling of rescuing an artifact, I was like a little Indiana Jones recovering precious chunks of history from the hands of evil. Here in my possession was a completely functional piece of electronic equipment that was tossed aside simply because of a technology that was newer and more exciting. After I hooked it up to an old analog stereo receiver, I loaded up an album (a Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album to be exact) and dropped the needle on that spinning black disc of vinyl. Nothing could match that crackle and pop of the needle tracking dead grooves on it’s way to the first track. Once the needle tracked and fired off the sounds of Herb Alpert’s brass ensemble, I instantly fell in love with vinyl. Still to this day I maintain a record player and a selection of classics on vinyl. Something about the crackle of dust hitting the needle and the variable pitch of a warped record brings me back to a childhood spent watching records turn and turn as they pumped the sound of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band out of a pair of grotesquely large and out of style Kenwood speakers.

Ol' Herb the Lady Killer

But vinyl was merely a gateway drug for me. It led me to a harder lifestyle of preserving Betamax players and tracking down Beta tapes from any thrift store accessible to a child via BMX bike. Later on in life, when Laser Disc fell out of favor with the techno-snobs, I scooped up a player and as many peripheral goods as I could get. Soon after that I was onto vintage video game systems. Ataris, Sega Master Systems, NES, any old console and game I could put my hands on was happily hoarded away in my room, which at that time served as the Land of Obsolete and Forgotten Things. Even when I got a drivers licence, my car choice was impacted by my desire to save the cast off and unwanted. I bought a 1980 Ford Fairmont Futura that had a date with the crusher. Yep, I rocked out a 1980 Ford Fairmont from the junkyard. Yep, it had a functional 8-track player. Yep, it was a chick repellent. But it was another thing saved from the jaws of destruction.

My old 1980 Ford Fairmont. Photo circa 2002.

I wish I could say that I grew out of this compulsion to save obsolete goods, but you will find my home no better off than my old childhood bedroom. I have a whole room cluttered with old Polaroid Land Cameras, 35mm cameras, video game consoles, typewriters, musty old books from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, old comic books, and ac adapters of every possible voltage and current. I can’t drive by a trash pile or a garage sale without having to slow down and visually inventory possible scores and saves. Fuck. I just realized that I am one of those people you see on Hoarders. Well, I guess if you don’t hear from me for a couple of years, send a camera crew, a psychologist, and a crew of shovelers to dig me out of my mountain of saved treasures. How ironic would it be to have been killed by the very items you sought to save from destruction?

Can it be saved?