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When I was a kid, I had a stack of those little 45 rpm records. Remember those? Mine were mostly Disney stories, complete with accompanying story booklets that you could read along with the narrator. “You will know it is time to turn the page when Tinkerbell rings her little bell like this: ‘ding!’” Winnie the Pooh stories were my favorites, though “How the Camel Got His Hump” also comes to mind.
I also had a lot of my sisters’ older 45s. They didn’t have booklets, but I loved them. There were stories, like “Poncho the Circus Donkey” or “Little Toot,” or “TuTu the Littlest Ballerina.” That story ended with a song, but the record was scratched, so I’d always have to hop up to move the needle or I’d hear, “My name is little Tutu, Tutu, Tutu, Tutu, Tutu …” over and over and over!
But most of my sisters’ old 45s were songs like “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” or “When I Grow Up” — in retrospect a highly sexist song about what girls and boys can aspire to, though I went to male-dominated seminary, so I guess it didn’t affect me too adversely.
Another favorite was “Scarlet Ribbons,” a sad song that appealed to my dramatic side, and “Peter and the Wolf,” a narrated, abridged version of Tchaikovsky’s classical music along with the story. There was “Waltzing Matilda” and even an original Alvin and the Chipmunks. I also, incongruously, had “Unchained Melody,” which my sister and I would put on if Barbie and Ken ever went on dates.
My mother passed on the Disney records, but she kept the older ones, and I’ve had them for several years now. I used to play them for my kids on the stereo my parents got me for Christmas my senior year in college. It was a huge thing, containing dual cassette player, a CD player, and the record player on the top. Over the years, the cassette players ceased to work, then the CD player quit, but still I could play records if I ever went down to the basement long enough to listen.
Then, this past Valentine’s Day, I bought my husband a turntable. It’s about the size of the tiny one I had as a kid, and it sits up in the living room, and we actually listen to it pretty often. I don’t know what it is about the sound of those old records, but they sure are neat. Way better than IPods or CD players or all that perfection of sound now available.
Records bring nostalgia, and that can never be matched by a high definition compact disc.
It’s as if the imperfections are what make it so special.
Kinda like a few people I know.
I’ve been thinking about perfection lately. About perceptions. About reality.
I was talking one day with two friends. Well, one friend and one acquaintance. The acquaintance had to leave, and as she left, my friend said of her, “She’s so sweet.” I looked at her in surprise. I had never perceived our acquaintance that way. I’d always found her to be a bit too perfect to be able to relate to. I suddenly found myself wanting to know her real self — to go beyond the surface friendship we had to that point. To discover the “sweet” I hadn’t been aware of.
I walked away from that conversation convicted about being judgmental and wondering how that particular acquaintance perceived me. If her view of me is anything like my view of her, it is far too simplistic, missing all the nuances that make for a better understanding of what makes me, me.
In other words, it’s the scratches and imperfections that make a person interesting — kinda like the scratches and imperfections of an old 45.
Thanks be to God, who loves us despite our imperfections!
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
