Triggered memories

[outsdr]

I posted this over at Murph's music place in response to an entry where he mentions sampling a National Geographic flexi-disc of whale songs:

1. outsdr Says:
   at 4:33 pm

   I had that flexi disk as a child; the one with the whale songs.

   When I was about 9, I got a flexi-disk out of one of the gumball machines at the grocery store. At first, I thought it was a sticker, but once I got it unfolded, I saw what it really was. I stuck it to a piece of cardboard and tried to play it on my mother’s record player, but it was so small (about 2 inches in diameter) that it triggered the auto-return on the arm before any of the disk could be played. So I was never able to hear what was on it, and over time, I imagined all sorts of wonderful things that were encoded on that disk.

   Years later, while I was working at a radio station, I found the disk in my closet. I took it to the station, where the turntables were completely manual, and would be able to play the disk. It crackled and popped and bounced around, but played, kind of… it kept skipping so it was only the same line being played over and over…

   “I’m Popeye the sailorman …. *skip* I’m Popeye the sailorman …”

   Although the mystery was finally solved, what a let down that this was all there was.

I reposted it here because it's one of those memories that was triggered by a very specific thing and I'll probably never remember it again. And someone left my cake out in the rain. Check out the sounds there, they're good.