Many decades ago, my grandparents – my dad’s parents -- gave me a Valentine’s Day card. For years, this card lived in a box of cards that I received from my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents.
I don’t know how I managed to hold on to these cards for so long, but eventually they got separated from their box and got scattered all over the place. Occasionally, I find one of the cards among some random stacks of ephemera around the house.
The front of the card depicts a headphone-wearing boy – who I have named Valentine Headphone Kid (VHK) -- kneeling in front of a record player. The verse reads:
Grandsons all are very fine
But here’s a special Valentine
Just to say the whole world through
There’s not a finer one than you!
This verse checks out. I was the finest grandson of the early 1970s.
It was about a year ago that I noticed just how prescient this card was: I have spent my lifetime listening to music just as attentively as VHK. He has become my music-listening alter ego and, starting tomorrow, VHK will be taking over Fridays here.
Since VHK will just be posting once a week, I’ll be giving him more than 217 words to review the records we’ve listened to each week.
~217~