End Of An Era

And just like that, the largest stash of 45-rpm singles known to YT has been thoroughly sealed off, safe from human eyes and mitts for what could be years. Knowing the imminence, I arrived at The Thing around 1:00 on Tuesday afternoon for one last feverish round of dusty-fingered digging, only to find that the southern-most hallway had already been plugged with easily a couple hundred crates of LPs. Compare the above picture with the one nestled somewhere within this post, taken nearly a year ago and from the same perspective. Indeed, an era has come to pass.

Possibly for the better, though; those old crates had been picked over by every form of record enthusiast, local and international. While not impossible to rescue a few tender vinyl morsels from the piles now and again, the rooting required rarely justified the end result. I can see why truffle hunters employ pigs; perhaps I could train an affable pot-belly to sniff around for Bull Moose Jackson in good condition.

Nevertheless, I built a substantial portion of my singles collection (the scratchy portion) on Thing finds, for which I am nothing but thankful. Most of the essentials are in place, and now it's about filling the cracks (of infinite number and depth). So if I have to work for it now instead of wandering down the local junk shop and rooting around the basement for a couple hours, so be it.