I Left My Heart
Crate Diving in Modern America
It’s been a rough couple of months. I suppose that if/when you get within reach of 70 that grief will become a semi-regular companion. And sometimes that companion brings along trunks and freight and blizzards of blinding sensation so that in the aftermath, if you ever get there, the scars on your scars are both numb and reverberating with emotion. So…what to do?
One thing you can do is to go ahead and apply for Social Security, as I did two weeks ago after the ice storm that was to come turned out to be a bit of snow and slush. No better time than to see if I could negotiate government documents—an act that usually fills me with angst and worry that I’m doing something wrong and that for my mistakes and trouble, I’ll be visited in the near future by someone either knocking at my door or asking me, oh-so-un-nicely, to come out and play. Anyway, if all goes well, I’ll be receiving my first gov’t-sponsored check some time in June, just in time for that 70th birthday.
What will I do with the almost $4000 a month that I’ll be getting as a payback for all I’ve contributed in the past 55 years? I could up my stereo system, a thought that makes my wife’s olive complexion go pale. I’m reading Garrett Hongo’s The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo (Vintage Books 2022) right now, and I didn’t know that a person could spend close to $100,000 for a turntable. Hongo didn’t do that—at least if he did, I haven’t reached that segment yet—but he’s gone all in for things like tube amplifiers and CD players that are as silent as a scream.
I’m not crazy, though, and though I might upgrade one day, I’m just as happy with buying a new stylus for my Audio-Technica turntable and then enjoying the smooth sound of the new and vintage records I own.
There are things that help me through the grief. One is watching Brit-Box detective mysteries like “Endeavor.” We’re only in season six, so if you watch and if you know what happens by the series’ end, I hope you won’t add to my sorrow by informing me of certain plot points that I’m pretty sure are going to go bad anyway. Maybe I’ve watched a series that’s more sad than this one, but I don’t think I’ve seen one that’s as realistically sad as what befalls the title character and his superior, DCI Thursday.
That a person can feel so tragically low and aesthetically high at the same time, of course, has been the mark of the truly artistic ever since the ancient Greeks—and others in farther reaches of my known world—told stories of abandoned women who take revenge on hubristic husbands by...
Another thing that helps, of course, is writing. I haven’t felt much like being on my chosen platforms recently, or more accurately, my heart just hasn’t been in it. But last week, in the course I’m teaching on Queering the Graphic Novel, I heard myself asking my students (this was during a discussion of Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer) what one word they’d most want to use to describe themselves. Very few said anything at all—though one offered their own first name—and so I said that the word for me was “writer.” I acknowledged that emotionally-speaking, “husband, father, grandfather, and son,” competed for #1. But as for the outer world, “writer” captured my longest dreams. Sure, I dreamed about the others, too, but when you’re twelve and still haven’t been kissed, dreaming about writing seemed more frutiful and more of a real possibility for coming true. So…
And just last night I thought about writing one last post—at least “last” for now—and was getting my thoughts in order when I realized that the prospect of writing was also stirring something inside me. I was actually getting excited, and part of what was getting me so excited was reviving this column. And what was so exciting about reviving this column was also the third thing that has helped me through this dark period:
Crate Diving.
This past Friday, my friend Phillip and I ventured into two different antique malls found on nearly abandoned highways deep into our county.
“There’s almost nothing that excites me more than doing this,” I said to Phillip. “It’s such a treasure hunt.” And all my life I’ve been hunting treasure or at least dreaming about it.
I know. Many people hit antique stores to find vintage furniture, glassware, and china that might date back a couple of centuries. Sometimes I look for the china pattern that was our family’s only-for-special-occasions ware. At other times I look for kitschy Americana radios, and at still other times I look for drawings/etchings of old barns. I saw a strange folk-artish painting on this particular occasion—a barn with a horse running free and an old tractor in front. I wondered if this was an attempt to be kind of Howard Finster-like, but Phillip urged me to look, but not touch, and certainly not spend the $37 for this object, which was framed by something most likely acquired from Wal-Mart.
Phillip, though, cheered me on when it came to my heart’s true desire: the following vintage records that were singing out to me (I used to feel this way, too, about finding rare comic books, just so you’ll hear the echoed cliches of certain men of my generation). I’m not sure how many records I ended up buying this past Friday (maybe 20 or 25), but I spent just short of $100, and so you’ll understand in a minute, if you haven’t already, just how much I’m longing for those monthly SSI checks to start rolling in. Because I think I can pull of some audiophile miracles.
The following are the six LPs I want to present to you here as reason enough to venture way out of your way to country antique stores, because people do die and leave their earthly goods to no one at all, and can’t you just imagine the former owners of these smiling or frowning at all that’s going on in their name, or without their giving their consent!
The Haul from Crate Diving, 2/6/26:
Nancy Sinatra: Nancy (Reprise 6333, 1968), cost, $5. Backed by The Wrecking Crew—Hal Blaine on drums, Carol Kaye on bass, Don Randi on piano, among others, Nancy covers standards like “Son of a Preacher Man,” “Memories,” and…wait for it… “Light My Fire.” The album was still in its original shrink wrap and sounds beautiful. I’m not sure what I thought of Nancy when I was twelve, or what anyone thinks of her now, but look this up and contemplate the cover for a bit.
I’ll get this first part out of the way. I don’t own, and didn’t think I would own, any music by Tony Bennett. Not that I have anything against him, but even when I was a kid listening to my parents’ records of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Johnny Mathis, I never heard, because they never bought, Tony Bennett records. I don’t think they disliked Tony, and so maybe this was just an economy-squeeze. I didn’t set out with Tony in mind, either, nor have I ever on my hunts. And yet. $5 is so little to pay, especially if what you’re paying for is an original 1962 pressing of I Left My Heart in San Francisco (Columbia CS 8669). Other songs on the LP include “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “Have I Told You Lately?” and “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.”
For the next two LPs, you might think I paid too much, given what I’d already found. But this was a different antique store, and people price things as they see fit, and you’re also welcome to negotiate. I rarely do because I want these places to stay in business, and besides $8 for prizes such as these really isn’t so bad. The first of the two is Roger Miller’s Dang Me (Smash records SRS 67049, 1969). The title song was first released in 1964, and so maybe this LP isn’t worth much, but on Amazon, the cheapest price is $15, and besides, this particular album contains his 1969 “Smash”, “Chug-A-Lug.”
The other $8 bargain in this bunch is Webb Pierce’s Sands of Gold (Decca DL 74486, 1963), which includes his biggie, “Please Help Me I’m Falling” as well as “Roses Are Red.” Many people have forgotten about Webb, and this copy still has the sticker from its original store (the D category, which if you looked at the price board you’d probably see that it cost $4.69).
The last two I found at my favorite record store, Cabin Floor, because when you’re hot, you’re hot. The first is a 1962, very clean copy of Patsy Cline’s Golden Hits (Everest ST 90070). Though I own these songs on other LPs, it seemed wrong to pass this one up, especially for just $10. Included are “Stop the World,” “Walking After Midnight,” and everyone’s fave; “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray.” And remember that this was released before the tragic plane crash.
Finally, in a stack so new it hadn’t even been priced yet (we negotiated $10) there was Keep On The Sunny Side (Columbia Mono-CL2152, 1964) by The Carter Family with Special Guest Johnny Cash. On Amazon, the cheapest vinyl copy of this was $50, some wanting $150. The record itself is in NM condition, the cover more like VG+. Oh man, though, does it sound brilliant and brilliantly moving. They sing “Will the Circle be Unbroken,” “Lonesome Valley,” and my favorite, “Gathering Flowers From the Hillside.” Johnny wrote the liner notes, and knowing what we know, this line feels both funny and portentous:
“Here in this album are songs that [A.P. Carter] sang so many, many times with Maybelle and Sarah. I wouldn’t call these girls on the album the New or the Old Carter Family. Here is Maybelle with her three daughters, Helen, June, and Anita, who have sung these songs all their lives.”
Well, John, the honor is all mine.
Please look these up if you will and enjoy, and I’ll be listening for the next time, and thinking, always, of whom I lost.