I'd been working on finishing up all the gold (finally!) on my TC-999 and decided to pop down the supermarket with her and pick up some groceries.
I usually pop by the same supermarket on my way home from work when I need something, with my radio of course, but I'd not been down too often
on a late saturday afternoon, which I found is a very different type of customer shopping about.
I turned my tape down a little bit lower than walking-volume, so I could still hear it but not loud enough to obliterate the other customers and started doing my shopping. First thing I noticed was the abundance of mums with young kids. The family-shoppers are usually done by the time I do my usual shopping, but today there were loads. I start going about my business and began overhearing 'mum, look at that!' and numerous times 'can i dance, mum?'. It was pretty funny! Then a mum came up to me, looked me up and down and said 'you're the coolest thing I've ever seen in a supermarket' which I found very charming. I continued shopping and went up to the register and the check out chick asked me if I could hang around for a while and turn it up. Haha! Great stuff! On the way out a Dad and his kids were behind me and he said to turn up, so I cranked the hell out of the TC-999 and he and his kids danced around the car park as we walked through!
It was a pretty surreal little shopping trip, but if anything I goes a LONG way to show how positive a reaction you get from people when they see and hear a boombox out in public.
If you've never done this kind thing before, I can't recommend enough to try it. It's all wonderful and awesome to collect and restore our radios, but seeing these kinds of reaction from complete strangers is really where the magic of our hobby lies. We can take for granted the gems of our collections when we see them all the time, but to the average person in the street a boombox is something almost mythical and entirely extraordinary.
Keep it in mind next time you need to take a quick trip to the shops or something, it's the using of these wonderful objects in their natural arena that takes our hobby to an entirely new level!
Rock On.
I usually pop by the same supermarket on my way home from work when I need something, with my radio of course, but I'd not been down too often
on a late saturday afternoon, which I found is a very different type of customer shopping about.
I turned my tape down a little bit lower than walking-volume, so I could still hear it but not loud enough to obliterate the other customers and started doing my shopping. First thing I noticed was the abundance of mums with young kids. The family-shoppers are usually done by the time I do my usual shopping, but today there were loads. I start going about my business and began overhearing 'mum, look at that!' and numerous times 'can i dance, mum?'. It was pretty funny! Then a mum came up to me, looked me up and down and said 'you're the coolest thing I've ever seen in a supermarket' which I found very charming. I continued shopping and went up to the register and the check out chick asked me if I could hang around for a while and turn it up. Haha! Great stuff! On the way out a Dad and his kids were behind me and he said to turn up, so I cranked the hell out of the TC-999 and he and his kids danced around the car park as we walked through!
It was a pretty surreal little shopping trip, but if anything I goes a LONG way to show how positive a reaction you get from people when they see and hear a boombox out in public.
If you've never done this kind thing before, I can't recommend enough to try it. It's all wonderful and awesome to collect and restore our radios, but seeing these kinds of reaction from complete strangers is really where the magic of our hobby lies. We can take for granted the gems of our collections when we see them all the time, but to the average person in the street a boombox is something almost mythical and entirely extraordinary.
Keep it in mind next time you need to take a quick trip to the shops or something, it's the using of these wonderful objects in their natural arena that takes our hobby to an entirely new level!
Rock On.
