It took a while, but here I am

 I grew up in the 80's and fell in love with music in the era with audio cassette tapes.  When I was a small child my parents would buy children's records and I remember my Disco Duck record and my favorite, John Denver and the Muppets Christmas.  

While my parents had a stereo with a turntable, I didn't buy records for myself because no one wanted to listen to Rock 'n Roll in the living room.  I had to use cassettes and a Sony Walkman to enjoy the likes of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, and Ozzy Osbourne.  

I did however have a neighbor who was closer to my older sister's age and she LOVED vinyl.  It was a rare treat when I would go visit her with my sister and listen to her records.

When I was a teenager, She would take me up to the City (in Oklahoma it is understood that "the City" refers to Oklahoma City no matter where you live in the state) and visit Happy Days Records.  I  bought my first set of records.  I had Poison's "Look What The Cat Dragged In" and "Open Up And Say Ah".  I also had the first 5 Van Halen records.  I liked the idea of having records that I could put up on my wall while I used cassettes and later CDs to actually listen to the music.

In 2000 I moved to the town where I went to University and had a rent house.  I had no money for rent and other bills and had to sell many things including my meager record collection.

Fast forward to 2018. I wanted to get back into Vinyl and get a inexpensive record player.  My wife enjoys vinyl at a much smaller scale but she also recognized I enjoyed it.  

I had no records or a way to play them.  I watched everything I could on YouTube about vinyl listening and collecting.  I zeroed in on Channel 33 RPM, Vinyl Eyezz and Too Many Records.

My wife and I had recently been watching a television show called Quarry.  In the show one of the character's was upset that he could not find his Otis Redding record "Otis Blue".  This album has a song called "You Don't Miss Your Water" and I loved it.

As an early Christmas gift she surprised me with a Wockoder Bluetooth record player and my first 2 records in 20 years.  Yes she got me Otis Blue and John Denver and the Muppets A Christmas Together.

The Wockoder player's Bluetooth did not work correctly out of the box so we returned it and I got an Audio Technica LP-60.

My wife's Uncle was moving out of state at the time and said he would gift me his record collection he started in the late 60's.  He sold his turntable years ago and didn't want to move with the records.

He gave me 115 records in all with artists including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, Doors, Deep Purple and many others.

Needless to say, this jump started my collection and gave me tons of music to enjoy.  I also buy records from my local music store Guestroom Records, Amazon, Discogs, and eBay.

As of this post, I have 215 records.  That is a lot to some people but a very small collection to others.

I do not see a stopping point for me and will continue to listen to my records and enjoy them.  It is fun to have media in your hand and be able to look at the jackets and liner notes as opposed to streaming everything.  Don't get me wrong, I stream music all the time but would rather watch the records spin!