USB Stick

 
After WW2 Dad bought a HMV mantel radio, it was a window to music of every style, swing, classic, ballad and rock n roll; I loved music.
 
I loved singing, as I went through secondary school I was in the church choir and our voices soared with the organ ­­music into the loft of St Mary’s Church. Grandma lived over the road and offered to teach me the piano so my music found a different instrument to my voice.
 
I turned sixteen and bought a tiny transistor radio for what was nearly a week’s wage, mum was furious that I had spent the money and took the radio back to demand a refund. Music began to rely more on technology than the voice and the piano. Our collection of 78 RPM bakelite records now had the 45RPM and 33 LP Vinyl’s as companions. I married and bought a Sharp Quadraphonic stereo system and my collection of 60’s and 70’s music grew. There were offshoots of technology into the 8 track tape system for the car and later the compact cassette tapes but these never took over the main stereo system.
 
The CD came on the scene and for a long time I had both players in one machine. Eventually I was buying all my music on CD and as systems wore out it became harder to get an LP player until the LP’s lay neglected for twenty years. It was a sense of loss to me, all my music gone or almost gone. I wanted to hear all the swing music of the 1940’s and delve into the rock n roll of the 50’s all over again.
 
Technology finally delivered me what I wanted. With the computer I had long been able to convert my CD collection to MP3 files but that is pretty much where they stayed, on the computer. The fad of IPod’s didn’t do anything for me, I didn’t want to go around all day with an earphone in my ear. The internet became a source of the swing and rock I was looking for as well the country music of the 50’s and 60’s.
 
Then an LP player came on the market that could convert the music from LP’s into MP3 and store it on a USB stick.
 
USB sticks, halleluiah, halleluiah, halleluiah. The heavens opened up and angels sang. Now all my LP’s, CD,s Internet music was stored on my computer and transferable to a USB stick.
 
My car has a USB stick player now that plugs into the cigarette lighter and is tuned to the car stereo. Yes I know you can buy a car stereo that will play MP3 from USB, IPOD and SD cards because I just bought one of those and installed it in my yacht, ‘Pelican’.
 
I have five 4gb sticks filled to various levels to take with me on the yacht, LP’s, Downloads, Swing, Rock, Country, if I were to set sail around the world it is unlikely I would get through them all.
 
It is one of the things of growing older (at any stage of life) in today’s rapidly changing world that things we treasure become obsolete and the change and it is not always welcome. So, simple as it may seem this is a big thing for me to have recovered and gained more music back than I could have dreamed of.