Justification

Though my MP3 player was only $15 I still have to justify the purchase of it to myself and that goes like this:

When I replaced the radio/CD player in my truck last summer, there was an odd feature in the new unit I had never seen before. It has an input jack where one could plug in an MP3 player. This jack has been bugging me since I first laid eyes on it. You see, I have an entire collection of radio shows by the late Jean Shepherd that he did on WOR in the 60. Shep, I’ve written about him before, was a writer and you probably know him for the Christmas Story. You know the one about the leg lamp in the window and the kid that wants the BB Gun.

When I was growing up, Shepherd had a 45 minute radio show on WOR five and sometimes six nights a week. It was a lot like this blog where there would be a new topic every night and he would tell stories from his life experiences. I would listen to the radio with one of those old style single piece ear phones while in bed. It was theater of the mind. There I’d be in the dark with my eyes wide open as my mind was filled from the creative images Shep would paint with words.

I loaded all of his radio shows on my MP3 player and now whenever I’m in my truck I plug into that input jack and I get transported back to the early 60s. The race track bugle announces that a new Jean Shepherd show is ready to air and it all begins again.