Several months ago, when I first realized we would actually be building a house, I began looking for storage solutions to make my life…AND MOVE…easier. This is a Rubbermaid box I found at K-Mart or Wal-Mart. It is called a Keepsake Photo and Media Box. It helped me get all my music organized and confined to one place. The boxes hold 27 DVD’s or 32 CD’s or 15 VHS tapes. I used mine to hold my CD’s. I bought 12 boxes and labelled them according to type: Christian Men, Christian Women, Christian Group, Oldies, Pop Men, Pop Women, Pop Group, Instrumental, Christmas, Children, etc. Then I sorted and loaded.

When we started building the Creek House, Don wanted a nice sound system in the house. That was fine with me, but waaaay over my level of understanding. I have just loved my old CD player that I could load 5 CD’s into at once. I could carry it around anywhere I wanted to go. Then I learned how to load CD’s onto my laptop and listen from there. That’s worked well for me, also. Now, I don’t know what all is involved in this sound system that runs through this house…but, it must be a cool thing. I have seen too many folk’s eyes light up when they see all the guts of the thing. I know where it is…and I know it has many parts…and I know there are many lights on it and words scrolling by. And, the sound can come out in any room I want it to…if I knew how to make that happen…which I don’t. Which is why I love my old ‘boom box’. I know just how it works and just where to whack it when it jams up. We have an understanding.

The young man who has been working in our house on this system for the last few months told me it was possible to load all the CD’s that I have into this system. Then, when I want to listen to one of them, I can just pull it up on the keypad wherever I am in the house. They would also be listed by artist or album title, or genre. “Excellent,” I said. He promised that he would give me all the lessons I needed until I learned to work it. I did not realize that I would be investing so much time in getting to the ‘listening’ part!

It turns out that before we could load them into the music system…they first had to be loaded onto the computer…then transferred to an external hard drive…then into the system. That, my friends, is about 3 steps too many for me. Anyway, for the last month I have been ripping CD’s onto my laptop…everytime I opened the computer. Every. single. time. And, I have finally finished! That would be 12 boxes full. That would be 12 boxes X 32 CD’s in each box! That would be approximately 384 CD’s! But, I am finished. Done!

Now, Alex takes my computer, and he puts them onto the external hard drive. (I went to the store with a note in my hand saying what to buy…I really have no idea what an external hard drive is.) Next they will be loaded onto the system and forever more I will have my music at my fingertips…or at least at my keypad. And, I will listen to beautiful music through the speakers that dot every ceiling in my house.

I remember the first transistor radio that I had. I thought it was the grandest thing that I could listen to all the cool music on the radio from this little box I held in my hand. I discovered that I could even turn the volume down very low and put it under my pillow and listen to it all night…or until the battery died. That was a rude awakening for me when I discovered that to be able to listen to the music…you had to buy the batteries. And to buy the batteries…you had to have money. And, if you were not wise enough to save some of your allowance…you were doomed to a life without the glorious sounds of 60’s and 70’s pop music. Bummer! My parents were very good about teaching us and showing us these hard life lessons. And, my little sister would NOT let you listen to her radio…even if she was not listening to it!

I remember 8 track tapes and how excited I was to have a tape player installed in my car. 8 track tapes cost more than batteries. Funny how the older you get, the more your toys cost, huh? Then the cassette tapes made the 8 tracks obsolete. And it was oh, so much easier to carry around the little cassettes. Then, there were the Walkmans, and the CD’s and the ipod…and on it goes.

Today, I asked some of the kindergarten students what they got for Christmas. Several of them got ipods! I told them I had one, too. I did not, however, tell them that I did not know how to work it! It baffles this aging brain of mine to think of how they will get their music when they are 50…plus. What will be the next big thing to make our music available to us? If we knew, we probably could not even fathom it.

Oh how far music has come since someone long, long ago first noticed the sound the wind made as it blew across the top of a reed growing by a stream. Music…we gotta have it…one way or another.