You never forget your first.

I was a younger fella. I would do things around the house to earn a little money from my mom and dad. A chore here and there. Maybe cleaning my room, the bathroom ect. When I received what I thought was the right amount of money, my mom asked me what I wanted to buy with it. I didn't even pause. I knew what I wanted and I knew if we went to any local store, we could buy it. Back then music was available almost anywhere. In a form that time has forgotten but my ears love to this day....Vinyl. We went to Sears of all places and I bought my first record. It came in a paper bag. I opened the inside, and looked at the man in the inside huddled with a tiger. The album was "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. I listened to that album over and over and over again. It spoke to me. My parents had an old record player that was housed in a piece of furniture. It was a brown wood case that I remember dusting many times to earn the exact money that allowed me to earn my new greatest possession. I listened to many singles on that player that mom and dad bought for me before I had earned money for my first LP. Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band, and other random 45s were played often. But this, this was MY first album. I would bring it everywhere I went. It would be known soon to my relatives that if you wanted to get something for Ryan that he liked, MJ was the way to go. My Aunt Susie would feed this with posters, and pictures and folders I could take to school. I will never forget the moment I got this album. It was the beginning of who I would become. The curly haired little boy that need to hear this music so bad he would do anything to get it. We lost MJ recently. The first thing I did was go to my album collection, and grab the old, dusty scratched up album that started this complete love for what music was. What it could do. Knowing that you could go the store and pick up a piece of someones heart, and soul and put it on a record player, or in a tape deck or in cd player and let them tell you their thoughts. I live for this moment to this day.