VICTROLA

How come I can never remember that word? Every time, without fail, that I attempt to summon it, it remains stubborn and refuses to come out of hiding.

Perhaps it’s because you rarely hear that ‘made up’ word today.

…Victrola, (properly called an "Amberola"). 

My thirty-something year old mother, (she seemed so much older) packed my brother and me into the car and drove us over to Uncle Gordon’s house. We happened to be visiting my grandparents in South Georgia at the time. (Funny, how people use visits to a primary relative’s house as an excuse to visit more peripheral relatives which they would never otherwise visit).

At any rate, we pulled up into my uncle’s yard, were greeted at the door, swigged on soft drinks, and generally ‘shot the breeze.’ After a few minutes elapsed, my mother’s uncle asked if we would like to listen to a couple of records, and with a smile amended his monologue to explain that this wasn’t just any kind of record player. It wasn’t a record player at all; (though it managed to do something very much the same).

Leading my mother, brother and me into his study, he pointed to what appeared to be an antique cabinet on a Fife & Duncan table, stepped over to it, and lifted the lid to reveal the strangest set of knobs and shafts and protrusions I’d ever seen. And as I analyzed the machine, I noticed what appeared to be a hand crank on its right side; (similar to the crank on one of those old Depression-era cars, except smaller).

And with this my Uncle Gordon walked over to the non-descript set of nuts and bolts, (and gears and screws), fitted what appeared to be an 8 or 10 inch cylinder onto the main shaft, cranked it up, and lowered a needle into place. And viola! The strangest excuse for music I had ever heard wafted throughout the room.

I was simply captivated, and thought it was one of the most unique things I’d ever seen (and/or heard).

Fast forward five decades

The year is 2012 and my second cousin and I happened to be dialoging a bit on a social media site, and I mentioned her Grandfather Gordon, and having once seen and listened to his Victrola. And with this, Annette (for that is her name) made me aware that our common cousin, Barbara currently owned that formerly 50-60 year old musical instrument; but which by now was approaching or had surpassed the century mark. Of course, I was both surprised and bemused that this ethereal phantom of the past had reassumed corporality. I never expected it to go any further, and when our conversation ended, I got about my life and relegated the relic to the same mental shelf from whence it had been temporarily un-shelved.

However,

(always an interesting choice of words denoting the emergence of something unexpected)

a few years later, actually this very week, Barbara contacted me and informed me that she was ready to sell the Victrola, but only to another family member; as she wishes someone whose father or mother bears the Ring surname to serve as its caretaker.

It goes without saying that I ‘volunteered’ and immediately agreed to her asking price of $500.

Strange. No, Providential that I have been given the opportunity to purchase my great uncle’s 100 year old Victrola; but not just any Victrola. But, rather the very machine with which I became familiar as an adolescent, and now again, as a man entering the sunset of his life.


by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Pt. 40. Copyright Pending.

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