For Christmas this year Santa gave me a record player. It’s something I had wanted for a long time, but always thought too frivolous to have, especially because I would then need to buy records. In case you didn’t know, a record collection ain’t cheap. Even so, the older I get, the less I worry about what’s frivolous, because it’s those frivolities that lessen the effects of my bigger worries.

Part of the fun of having a record player and not wanting to spend too much money is that I really have to think about music I love, artists and albums I love, and music that is timeless and great for many occasions. With the record player, Santa gave me two Christmas albums: A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and Have Yourself a Swingin’ Little Christmas by Various Jazz and R&B artists. The next album was easy to pick: The Beatles’ White Album. But then I got stuck. There is a LOT of music out there!

Then, this past weekend, I was watching Sunday Today with Willie Geist, and one segment was about how record collecting has spiked during the pandemic. What a cowinky-dink! Following that bit came a segment called “A Life Well Lived.” This week’s was about Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette tape. Watching these two stories helped me decide on my next disc of vinyl.

Cassettes actually hold a special place in my heart. My sister and I used to make so many mix tapes. We became masters of the art of perfectly timing when to push which buttons in order to get the song we wanted off the radio broadcast without getting the voice of the DJ. Then we got a dual cassette player, then a cd and cassette player. Those really changed the game!

But I can’t buy my old mix tapes on vinyl. So I thought about what cassette albums I used to own. My first, and one of my favorites, was an album by The Drifters. I would listen to that album over and over again, and sing all of the words by heart, which is funny to me because I was a child of the 80s, but I preferred the music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. So, I just added The Drifters’ Greatest Hits to my budding collection.

I’m sure everyone has their own reason for starting a record collection, but I think the renewed popularity this past year, during a pandemic, has something to do with people trying to think of better times, and the magic of music can transport us to those places with just a measure of notes. Thinking back to my childhood, to the special times in my life, will spark my memory of what was playing in the background. And so it’s not just a record collection, but a collective record of my life’s happy moments.

What album would you buy first?