Boomers . . . and How They Got That Way
Epistle 20 – Juke Boxes
Back when there where diners with padded red and green plastic booths, on the Formica table next to the window there was a juke box, a machine that didn’t look like a box or a juke, whatever a juke is. It had chrome sides, a glass face and a half-dozen pages of type-written songs that you could flip through with little levers on the bottom. Some of the list was even legible. The songs were an interesting combination of the very popular, the very obscure and Frank Sinatra.
For a nickel (or five songs for a quarter if you were really flush), you could punch a couple of buttons indicating your favorite tune, and the juke box would magically send instructions to headquarters, a mammoth 4-foot machine that held all the vinyl records (no CD’s, thank you, only 78’s or 45’s), standing on edge, hoping somebody would punch their buttons. The lucky selection would then roll out of its slot and lay flat on the turntable while the arm with the needle would descend on the first groove (usually) to play your favorite song. Of course, you could also put your money in the big machine and punch those buttons but that wasn’t nearly as mysterious.
Apparently, the record selection was changed periodically to reflect the modern tastes in music, plus a seasonal song or two like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, but you couldn’t prove it by me. Did anyone ever see somebody change the records or type up a new song list? I didn’t think so. Of course, the obscure songs and the Sinatra songs never had to change in my lifetime . . . and probably didn’t. Maybe the hot modern hits by the Andrews Sisters and Frankie Laine were installed in the dead of night when the diner was closed so the owner wouldn’t be blamed if the tune was really bad.
Now, of course, everyone has an i-Pod plugged into their ears so you don’t even need a clunky old juke box to entertain you and your friends. You can get a vaguely similar experience in a nightspot with some kind of electronic gadgetry, but it’s too loud to recognize the tune, if it even has one. That’s probably a good thing because nobody had to type anything, nobody had to push any buttons, and it’s probably not Sinatra. Hell, I once tried to play one of those modern music machines, and it wouldn’t even take my nickel.
We Will Win
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