Mrs. JC Sounds Off
Mrs JC, Incognito
We turn the post over to Mrs. Jazz Collector:
“I really have just one question: Are you all as crazy as my husband?
When our kids were growing up, every family vacation we would drive around looking for record stores. In Boston, LA, San Francisco, Toronto, London – wherever – we’d search for record stores, Al would run in and leave us sitting in the car, no matter what the neighborhood. He’d go away on business trips and come back loaded with records. One time he went to Chicago and bought 300 78s and had to buy an extra piece of luggage just to lug them home.
Where we live is always a function of whether there is room for Al’s records. We bought one house because it had a huge living room with high ceilings. Al had floor-to-ceiling cabinets built, with a rolling
library ladder. He told me we would put books and records there. Hah! As soon as it was built it was loaded with at least 10,000 records. And he still had to have a separate record room upstairs for the “gems” of his collection. We now have our home plus a small cottage on a lake in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. Every room in each house has at least one turntable. Some have two or three. Says Al, with unimpeachable logic: ‘What if we want to listen to a record?’
I could go on, but you get the point. I’m sure you have stories of your own. Al says you can use this space to share them. I’d let him close this post, but he ran off into the other room. He’s on eBay. Looking for records, of course.
P.S. – That’s not my real picture, in case you were wondering.”
“I really have just one question: Are you all as crazy as my husband?
Dear Mrs jazz collector…yes we are.
My wife and I bought a cottage on an island up in Maine. One of the first things I brought over was a turntable. And I’m originally from Western MA. Maybe there’s a connection there…
Mrs. Jazz Collector: my wife and I spent last weekend searching no less than 15 thrift stores in the San Francisco bay area for jazz records. We added 30 to our collection at $1.00 each. While I was loading up on records, my wife was loading up on books and other stuff. To answer your question, I am not crazy, but a highly discerning shopper in paradise.
I still see my wife sitting in a Rome sidewalk cafe on a busy road with a 1 litre bottle of red wine in front of her. The deal was that I would order some wine for her whilst I was off hunting. A pity they did not have 2 litre bottles.
I don’t talk about, a 5 days ‘holiday’ trip to N.Y. where I spent 2 whole days at Prestige’s in Bergenfield, one day at Dayton’s and an other say in the Times Square area, nor about days spent at the Paris flea market at St Ouen and London Soho. We madmen are shameless.
Our ladies have suffered indeed. But is all over. Fortunately for them there is EBay. Fortunately for us madmen there is “the jazzcollector” who keeps an eye on things.
It is so good that I am not alone in my experience! Since we’ve been married, we moved 5 times. Each time, my job was to pack up the house, and Al’s job was to pack up his records. The first thing that was set up in each house was Al’s record collection. On one move, we had 200 boxes of family items and 200 boxes of records. When the movers saw the boxes of records they called the home office for two more trucks!