1994
Posted on February 5th, 2012
Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 2:45 am
I have a bit of a miserable head cold going. I shouldn’t be up at 2am as such, but yet I am. I’m listening to some songs from a turning point in my youth, and I’m wallowing in nostalgia. Right now I’m blasting Veruca Salt’s 25, I’m recalling the whole scene of listening to the album the songs from.
The CD/Cassette boombox that I’d specifically wanted for Christmas whirs gently while I listened blistering solos on cheap KOSS headphones. Lying in bed, I ponder what I’d have to do in class the next day. I’d probably blown off some homework, likely because it felt trivial, and the punishment for skipping more than 4 assignments seemed just as trivial. Specifically, being held in for the monthly bonus recess didn’t mean much when most of the class made a point to pick on me anyway. The separation wasn’t that hard on me, and only my very last teacher for the last of 6th grade inspired any achievement out of me.
Oddly though, it would be the music that listened to late into the night that bridged the gap between myself and the other students. I eventually brought my guitar to school, on which I had been dutifully learning various songs. I wasn’t more than half way through stumbling through “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or something like that before it was obvious to me that whatever the other students had thought of me for the past 2 years had evaporated. Any other weirdness I exuded was superseded by musical talent, what little there was at that point.
Thus, through out Junior High and High School, that was the icebreaker. If I didn’t bring my guitar on the first day of classes, it’d find it’s way to the campus eventually, and I’d play a few songs and make a few friends. Slowly but surely, I didn’t even need that. It was the stepping stone to creating my own confidence, because even with out a demonstration of skill, I knew I that I could do something cool. I learned to be assertive, friendly and outgoing, and I made a menagerie of radical friends because of it. I didn’t keep all of them, but they were all wonderful while I had them.
Truthfully, I miss the simple focus that came with listening to a CD. No browser 30 tabs open, no apps, just CD player, with at most 80 minutes of music, whirring gently. I suppose that’s any generation’s privilege – to miss the things they used to have, even with the imperfections that came with them. I’m sure some of the iPod generation will miss the single purpose and non-connected nature of the old mp3 players.
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