A kid’s first boombox is a beautiful thing. Mine was a bit of the divine made by Panasonic which has survived to this day. (Side note: they don’t make shit like they used to. I’m not one to opine for the “good old days,” but I can’t think of any piece of technology made this millennium that has lasted even half as long.) It was, of course, unnecessarily large, considering it had but one CD and one cassette player, along with a few knobs for audio settings. These knobs were no small things, though, as I marveled over them as if they were indicative of the caliber of machine I had just acquired. Treble? Bass?? Good god, I could do ANYTHING with these controls!
I got this boombox at the age of ten after lusting after a friend’s stereo and begging my mom for my own. Yes, I had had a puny cassette player and even a Walkman (that will be a story for another time), but this was another matter altogether. This was the kind of the thing that made other kids ooh and aah over my luck at receiving such a marvel of modern technology. Looking back, I’m sure it was a below average music system, but at the time, the fact that my friends were in awe of it was enough for me. Continue reading “Straight From Da Streets”
