It was 1996 and was I 5 years old, living in Milwaukee, WI on the top story of a three story victorian home, which my parents rented from an elderly widow named Grace. My dad drove, of all things, a borrowed and beaten-up brown Buick with hideous brown seat cushions to match. He was just starting out as a traveling-salesman and drove all over the Midwest from Minnesota to Ohio selling athletic equipment for days even weeks on end. I didn’t get to see my father a lot of the times, so when he was home it was a big deal. We would spend lots of time together doing this and that, but what I remember most vividly looking back is being in that brown Buick. 

This is where I would begin to develop my strong interest and love of music, as well as my taste in music. Not by listening to the radio, but by listening to my dad’s collection of cassette tapes. Compact discs were soon to wipe out the existence of cassettes but many people like my father continued to buy them. He had quite the collection, more than I can recall, but kept his favorites in his car. When I was in the car I would hear all of his favorites blaring over the stereo. I was fascinated with the cassettes, spending hours rifling through his collection and listening to them. He had cassettes from artists like: Talking Heads, R.E.M, Elton John, Paul Simon, The Cure. My favorite tape of his was definitely Paul Simon’s Graceland; I knew all the words to “You Can Call Me Al.” Now every time I listen to that album, I am constantly reminded of growing up and my relationship with my father. 

Now that I am older and can appreciate music more, I am honestly grateful that my father didn’t keep a collection of country or heavy metal cassettes as this would have greatly altered my taste in music. Now fourteen years later, I am astonished that I have continued to carry with me these memories of my first musical experiences. It’s amazing to think how much music has changed over the years and where we are now. The days of unraveling tangled cassette tapes are gone, replaced with plastic iPods and digital music files. Gone are the days of mix tapes, replaced with a buzzing internet blogosphere and file sharing networks. I’m so glad that I was born in 1991, so I could experience the tail-end of a world with grunge music, an MTv that played music videos and no internet.