It Won't Be Long Until the Music Returns Again

  • By Mike Dewey
  • May 5, 2013
  • 345
                        
SUMMARY: When Mike Dewey gets a line on a turntable, he allows himself to believe that everything's going to be work out well. How he deals with what happens can be a life lesson. Here's a seemingly simply question for you. What's your initial reaction when the phone rings or a knock comes at the door? Your answer, be it pleased or scared, tells a lot about you, your life at this moment and your future. Wait a second, that sounds like I'm some sort of psychic or tarot card reader, which is certainly not the case. I have no use for that kind of thing, being utterly and seriously rooted in the real world. The here and now. Life as it is. No crystal ball, horoscope nonsense. Oh, well ... who am I kidding? You know me too well. I'm superstitious and bound to the unknowable, a faithful person full of hope who senses disaster around every corner and walks on, believing in small miracles. Without a little flicker of light challenging the darkness, where would we be? Lost. I ran across a small ad in the paper the other night, something that I thought might actually help as I look to find my way. It advertised a turntable for sale and, since mine had given up the ghost a few weeks before, I called the number and arranged the transaction. Forty bucks for a 12-year-old Technics that was in like-new condition; in other words, a real find. But, when I got it back to the house and connected all the wires, I soon discovered that the turntable didn't, well ... work. It was a pretty piece of machinery and I fell in love with it, even as it failed to do the one and only thing I needed it to do. "Turn," I pleaded with it. "Just turn." I can't tell you how disappointed that made me. You get to a point in your life when you just need a single, solitary good thing -- a tiny spin of the karma wheel -- to alter your outlook and then, you're back where you started. Three thousand albums and no way to play them. THE LADY WITH WHOM I'd arranged the deal couldn't have been nicer or more apologetic. "I'm so sorry about this," she said. And I believed her. "Could I ask you a question?" "Well, certainly," she said. "Well, when was the last time you actually used the turntable? Last week ... last month?" She looked at her husband, who shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe four, five years ago." What a drag. We played around with it on their kitchen table, trying to coax it into life, a gesture I knew was futile having fiddled with it until nearly dawn. The woman handed me back the two twenties I'd given her the night before and repeated her apologies. "That's OK," I said. "These things happen." I wanted to add, "To me," but I left that part unspoken. But part of me wonders if there's some sort of Pigpen cloud of dust following me around, some ineffable and inarguable and intractable and indefatigable and insatiable curtain of bad luck that's just waiting to be lifted. So I remain strong and smile. What choice is there, right? Faithful readers might recall that I was able to harvest nearly a hundred dollars in pennies last month, pouring nearly 10,000 of those Lincoln one-cent pieces into a counting machine at the local grocery store. This is something my wife reminded me of as I dealt with the continued lack of a turntable. "You still have that penny money," she said. "I'll go online and see what I can find." I love that about her. She's such a comfort. Within a few minutes, she'd located several that might fit my space, my needs and my budget. I'm studying my options and feel that soon, the Stereo Room will, once again, live up to its name. I'VE ALSO BEEN trying to fix my 1991 Honda Civic which hasn't run since last summer. I'm loathe to give it up, having paid for two tows, a couple of new parts and lots and lots of optimism. I keep thinking that I'll find the deal on a distributor, but there's a large gap between my knowledge of component stereo equipment and automotive expertise. I'm very good at the former, lousy at the latter. So I've made some inquiries and when the phone rings or there's a knock at the door, I want to feel positive, that something great's about the happen. But the truth is, I have my doubts. "Why," my wife's fond of asking me, "do you want to keep throwing money at a car that's probably going to break down again as soon as you get it running, if you get it running?" Facing that kind of spousal logic, I usually turn to my superstitious self and say something like, "Well, one of these days, things are going to get better." That's when my wife does one of two things: quietly leaves the room or silently hugs me. Usually, I'm happy to report, it's the latter. No one lives a perfect life. We all face problems. And, Lord knows, we struggle with things beyond our control. But that's fine. All I want is a chance, just a small sliver of possible happiness, and that's enough. I was thinking about that the other morning as I scrambled some eggs and fried up some sausage links for a rare breakfast in the Sunroom, something my wife had been looking forward to for days. As she buttered her toast, I poured the orange juice and we shared a contended time, just talking about nothing and savoring the time we had together. "Yum," my wife said. "These are the best eggs you've ever made." You know what? I actually believed her. And the next time someone calls or knocks at the door, I'll answer it. With a smile. Mike Dewey can be emailed at CarolinamikeD@aol.com or snail-mailed at 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. Like him on Facebook.


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