If I could save time in a bottle

I'd sing along with Jim Croce

The music of the 1980s was, to me, defined as a decade of cassette tapes. My family did not have a lot of them, but what we did have got played a lot, and frankly a good deal of the tunes were from the 1960s and 70s.

Greatest Hits were popular with my father. He’d pop in a Kenny Rogers tape or Greatest Hits 2 by The Oak Ridge Boys.

Those were the days when you let the record company collate for you. You didn’t have much choice. We listened to the tape all the way through. Sometimes we’d rewind it after a side had played and play the side again…and again…and again.

Those were the days of the road trips—with the family or with the ballclub. A lot of friends still remind me about how much my dad—and, frankly, me and all the fellows on my soccer and baseball teams—loved “Elvira” by The Oak Ridge Boys. I didn’t listen much to Side 2 of Greatest Hits 2.

We had Beatles tapes at one point, though I recall my dad giving a bunch of those tapes to one of my cousins at a certain point. Perhaps he was…