Tim Buckwalter On The Perfect Record Store

I’ve always been a 45s guy.

My first memory of records is sitting on my bedroom floor, at age three, endlessly playing Peter Pan Read-A-Long 7” disks on my tiny portable player. (Okay, I don’t actually remember this, but it did lead my mother to express her concern about my well-being to her baby book).

Then, at eight, at a garage sale, the lively label design of a Decca 45—reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon show-- caught my eye. The title of the song seemed intriguing. ”Won’t Get Fooled Again.” I wasn’t an angry kid, but who doesn’t want to learn to not be taken advantage of?

Distracted by a brief love affair with Columbia House—a penny taped to a piece of paper brought an avalanche of albums — my love of 45s was in a holding pattern until everyone in middle school began talking about Pink Floyd. When I finally heard “Another Brick In The Wall" on 98 Rock, I thought I might cry. It was so fantastic, and, obviously, so about our lives. I wanted my own copy of “Another Brick.” And I wanted it immediately.

When I expressed my desperation to a classmate, he nodded and said, “Go to Ray’s Appliances.”

At this point we lived in the country. I was in seventh grade, rode a ten-speed everywhere and took off on the five-mile ride to Ray’s.

When I opened their door, it was amazing. Picture one of those cinematic scenes where the sky opens to reveal a heavenly choir singing in a golden light, but directed by John Waters. Along with the avocado-colored stoves and Frigidaires, this small, dimly-lit cement block building had a multi-tiered rack of Top 40 singles.

There it was, in the Number 7 slot. A 45 of "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)”! 

Soon I was biking to Ray’s at least once a week. I was flush with cash from cutting people’s yards and at age 12, I had the stamina to spend what was likely an annoying amount of time rifling through or simply staring at the 45s. If I hadn’t had to be home for dinner, I would have stayed until the patient and bouffanted counter woman kicked me out. Eventually, we became good buddies. She gave up on hand-writing a sales/invoice slip for me  (it took sooo long for her to spell out the artists and song titles in hard-to-read cursive as I stood before her literally twitching with anticipation), instead just taking my money and handing me back my records.

Looking back from the vantage point of hundreds of record stores later, I see that Ray’s Appliances had its flaws. Their Top 40 stacks sometimes mysteriously lacked the sexy or controversial songs, usually replaced by a country ballad. The counter lady could never tell me why, nor could she identify a mystery song from a few hummed bars and scraps of lyrics.

It doesn’t matter. It was my record store, and it was perfect.

| Tim Buckwalter is Frank Shankly.