Frances Stebbins Correspondent
{This is a memory from the six decades the author has spent writing about faith communities in daily, weekly and monthly news publications covering the western third of Virginia.}
Down at my favorite second-hand thrift store operated for Disabled American Veterans (DAV) on Shenandoah Avenue Northwest, there are thousands of long-playing Vinyl records, tapes and compact discs. They are testimony to the galloping advances in communication technology I’ve experienced in my lifetime.
Everyone, except senior adults who have reached my years, has long since abandoned these objects once found everywhere. Looking to a time when I may downsize even more from my small Salem home, I cleared out three of the distinctive plastic boxes made to store the tapes of 40 years ago.
They date from the days when late husband Charlie and I rediscovered our marital relationship as our three young adult children were leaving the nest, our daughter for permanent residence in the “Deep South” and soon our bachelor sons to their own homes closer by. We entered into some dialogues about our relationship. They were precipitated by my attendance at an “Encounter” weekend encouraged by my church; I wrote of this on September 10 of last year.
The weekend was a most unpleasant experience, and the church soon stopped promoting them, but out of it did come renewed joy in our relationship. With several friends, we began and for 25 more years were active in an organization now called Better Marriages for couples who learned techniques of better communications.
We used the then-popular tapes and their player to practice listening and expressing feelings as well as thoughts. It’s all part of history now as are the tapes we used from 1977 to 2008 when Charlie died of a massive stroke caused by an incurable respiratory condition perhaps triggered by the asbestos he encountered as a U.S. Navy torpedo handler in World War II.
In the DAV store also is a large variety of 33 1/3 long-playing records containing classical and popular music. I bought several at give-away prices and opened up a box of memories from almost a half-century ago. The songs from Broadway musicals of the post-WW II era as well as many others recorded by popular bands of the day have disappeared into the mists of time as the Digital Age has taken over.
Is that bad? Not necessarily, but change has come more rapidly in the field of music than in almost any other.
Playing a couple of records from the 1960s evoked the days of rebellious youth – the AARP magazine for elders ran an article on the folk festival of Woodstock when the 50th Anniversary rolled around last summer, for those now old were once young there with illicit drugs, wild hair and anti-Vietnam War protests. The minister of the small church we then attended was on the side of the protesters and liberals; many of the World War II veterans, like my husband, didn’t agree with him.
Play a song like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and the old days come flooding back.
Last year in Valentine’s Day week my column, “Love and Loss” had a darker theme, for February for me holds memories of the deaths of some of my most significant people including my father in my infancy and a son four years ago.
A good many people seemed to relate to what I wrote. At best, the second month of the year can be marked by a lot of cold, wet and sunless days. The penitential time of Lent usually begins during the month – Ash Wednesday this year is February 26 and many observant Christians will go to special services and be reminded that “you are dust and to dust you shall return” as a daub of ashes is placed on their foreheads.
But consider love as recalled in the old imperishable records and tapes, for the music of love is remembered forever.