After years of not paying attention to my record player (and the old LP recordings), a sense of nostalgia filled my life as 2018 was coming to a close.  It was not a very good year for me, but I am not going to say that I had nothing to be thankful for.  There are always so many things to be thankful for in one’s life.  Lives end, but the experiences shared, the memories, the love remains.  It was a time to realize that that old song from “Funny Girl” – “People” still mean the same thing to me now, several decades since I first heard it (and fell in love with the song).  Life has ups and downs, but as long as there are people in your life that give it meaning, life is always worth living.  Sorrow may linger, but joy always remains.

And so it was that I ended up putting a record on that old Denon record player, only to find out the stylus on the cartridge had snapped.  A few days later, Amazon shipped me a new Ortofon cartridge.  And what was dusty and forgotten was alive again.  As the stylus fell on the vinyl, the past and the present became one.  And the sound of music, long unheard, became part of my life again.

A little snippet from Alfred Brendel playing Mozart.

A sampler – Alfred Brendel and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Mozart Piano Concerto No. 15

Another thing.  Somehow, an old CD player that was supposed to have been donated years ago never made it out of the garage.  After cleaning off the dust, it was time to play an old Carly Simon CD.  Some things never get old.

Carly Simon, My Romance – a short sampler

A new year.  Old things are new again.  And new things, well, they’re always there to be discovered.  “People.  People who need people.  Are the luckiest people in the world.”  I am a lucky man.