Did we even know you were
still around? Oh, well... Thank you for those fun times in 1981 with my young brother
in front of the TV on weekends. He would laugh at the funny dance moves but
danced with me anyway. MTV transitioned us from the 70s vinyl player which had
given me and my little siblings happy times singing along and dancing to every
record my father brought home. Later in high school, I would get some of
Michael Jackson’s and the Bee Gees’ with my piggy bank money. My Sharona by the
Knack and We Will Rock You by Queen that we belted out still ring in my ears.
With MTV in the 80s, all these songs came alive in our color TV set.
Also became popular in the
80s were cassette tapes which I played in my Sony Walkman, my weekend companion
in the dorm after long nights of pounding on my portable typewriter. I kept
this player during long trips to and from the refugee processing center where I
taught in the 90s, and I think I haven’t disposed of it. Only in the summer of 2025
while vacationing in the Philippines did I dare put my cassette tapes in the
garbage as no one would take them anymore, along with the DVDs I’d collected while
in North America. Neighbors no longer have DVD or cassette players while their
children and grandchildren have earbuds on all the time. As much as I also love
music, I hope they discover the magic of silence, too.
Growing up in a home
filled with music, it was hard not to have a portable CD/cassette player with
AM/FM radio while in Moldova and the US for teaching jobs in the 90s and 00s. In
North Carolina, I got my news, tornado warnings, and country music by tuning in
to 95.9 on low volume, so I was shocked to see these loud boomboxes or ghetto
blasters resting on the shoulders of some subway riders as they walked from car
to car in NYC. I thought I’d see them only in the movies! I had to cover my
painful ears until they got off the train. I don’t mind people sharing music in
public spaces while others share their phone conversations, but it shouldn’t
hurt so much, should it?
At home, my father and
sister would play the piano, my brother his electric guitar and drums, and
another sister, her recorder. Sometimes, my mother would beg my sister to stop
playing the creepiest, most terrifying classical pieces, saying “I can’t focus
on my food!” Luckily, no neighbor complained when my brother’s band practiced
some of Guns N’ Roses’ and Bon Jovi’s on weekends. My mother and I were the
unlucky members of the family who didn’t play any instrument, so we would just
belt out a song once in a while, not really knowing whether or not we have a
pleasing voice. This reminds me of my grandma who sang in church and at a
fiesta in her soprano voice. I thought that all our drinking glasses and mirrors
were breaking that night. Family members have either moved to Heaven, moved out,
or stayed in our house built in the 80s, but whenever I visit, it’s the sounds
that make it feel like home still.
My boombox came with me during
my four-day drive from North Carolina to Alberta and became useful in my
Kindergarten classes during movement breaks and work periods before the
cassette player died, followed by the CD player. Now do I still have music CDs?
Well, well, well... A used 2010 Honda Civic didn’t disappoint when I got it in
2019 for it had, and still has, a working CD player, so I’m still keeping John
Denver, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston, the Beatles, ABBA and the
likes alive with me on long drives during summer breaks. Of course, their music
brings nostalgia for memories of happy years (or decades) gone by, with friends
and loved ones. It’s been a good ride really, literally and metaphorically, and
I won’t forget ABBA’s Thank You for The Music lyrics:
So I say thank
you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say thank you for the music, for giving it
to me.
To MTV: Did the video really kill the radio star? AM/FM radio remains alive in my boombox. As I’m not a fan of earbuds, I guess it’s coming with me to my nursing home. Thank you for the music indeed. MLJ17102025GoodbyeMTV
