Mix Tape

I had the sudden urge on the weekend to get stuck into the 'junk room' of the house.  The one room with all the remaining boxes.  We are down to the really old stuff now, the stuff that was boxed up in the back of our wardrobes before we even met.  I found at least 50 cassette tapes.  Remember those?? I also found an old portable tape player (not a Walkman, this was a tape Dictaphone), and yes it still worked.  I was in early 90's pre teen HEAVEN!!

So many memories, I remember the Top 40 Countdown on Sunday nights and I would sit in my room listening with a tape in the tape deck and my finger just above the record button (tape, deck, button, I am so old) just waiting for the DJ to stop so I could record the song.  And you had to be ready for the end, so you could press stop just as the ad came on.  I would sit happily for a few hours doing my own thing recording the songs I wanted.  Then on the Monday when I came home from school I would put my mix tape on and listen to the songs, and there was always at the start and end of each song the last few words of the DJ or the first few words of an ad, and then the next song would start.  If you really liked a song you would have to rewind it and stop and start and stop and start to find the start of the song.  Tough, but on the weekend I longed for those days.

Then there was uni.  My uni was really up on technology.  They recorded the lectures.  So if you weren't big on attending the lectures (like me), it was wonderful.  On Friday morning you would go to the library and enter through the special door into the Reserve and walk up to the shelves covered in cassette tapes.  You would pick up the tapes from all your lectures that week and walk into a special room that had a very special machine.  You would empty your bag and pull out the 10 cassette tapes you brought with you and into the machine goes your tape and the lecture tape and in less than 5 minutes you had copied that lecture onto your tape.  Then at home I would listen to my lecture, stop, start, rewind, fast forward and then do it all again the following week. In my third year I discovered I could enrol myself in the subject externally and the Distance Education Department would just post me the tapes.  Those were the days.

Finally, not long after uni, inspired by those early reality TV shows, I felt I needed to learn to sing.  My singing teacher asked me to bring in tapes and would record our lessons so I could go home, listen and practice.  I found those tapes on the weekend.  It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't.  I remember how much I enjoyed singing and I found myself smiling at all the silly things she had me sing.  It was a time I had forgotten about until now and it has stuck.  I didn't care back then what I did, I did whatever it was that made me happy, and I need to inject a little of that back into my life each day.  Now please tell me I am not the only one that remembers cassette tapes!