Sometimes I hear things as though it’s the first time ever. This morning it was an expression from Channel 6 meteorologist Mike Grogan – a Tulsa native, by the way, and Union graduate. He noted that the weather forecast was beginning to:
Sound like a broken record.
Now, Mr. Grogan is not at an advanced age. Quite to the contrary. So, I was surprised to hear him use an expression I grew up with – almost literally.
I’m assuming that you folks under a certain age would more quickly associate the phrase “broken record” with someone like Olympian Michael Phelps. That athlete alone has broken more records in the past decade than the entire broadcasting industry. Broken records – the type that had songs recorded on them – weren’t confined to radio, but when your record began skipping during the live afternoon program, a lot more people heard it.
Maybe you’d be in the breakroom refilling the coffee cup or visiting the porcelain lounge – always with one ear listening to the on-air monitor – when the song would hit a passage, hiccup, and repeat. Prehistoric times, you know. And it rarely happened when you were right there, at the control board.
Vinyl records.
45 rpm’s even. (You can Google it.) We called it skipping. The needle would be tracking along and hit a scratch or a piece of overlooked lint and the song would “skip” back a groove. And then, do it again. And again – until it was jostled, bumped, or smacked ahead.
One summer, during a “remote” broadcast, I was spinning records from the sidewalk in front of a business and the records started skipping. One after another. (We had some known skippers that always hung up at the same spot. I hear those songs on the radio now and expect to hear the repeat.) Turns out, the sun was beating down so intently that the vinyl was warping, sending the needle over a surfer’s wave so dramatically that several had rebound bounce-skips.
I could go on and on about those old times, but then – I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.
Then, there was the young fellow who took a look at the machine on the window seat (you can see it like he did by clicking on the image, and notice it’s sitting on an old vinyl-playing turntable…) and called out, “Mom! Look at that old, old computer!”
She gently corrected him as to what it was.
I wouldn’t have cared if she had used a phrase besides – “Old Days.”
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McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!
