Mass Inheritance of Vinyl

Recently, I inherited my friend Kerry’s record collection. Kerry is an old friend and college housemate – we spent countless hours together “back in the day” hanging out, drinking beer, and spinning our latest vinyl finds. For the last few years, he has been living in Albany, New York. He recently decided to make a new life for himself in England, and got rid of almost everything he owned. Remembering the old days, and how much I enjoyed pawing though his collection, he graciously offered his records to me – six crates of vinyl, a storage tub of singles, and a small box of CD’s. Geek that I am, I jumped at this offer. He freighted a few things from Albany to his sister Karalee’s house in Aurora, and shipped the albums there as well. If you’ll indulge me a little, I’d like to share the story of their trip to my house. It ended up being more work than I had originally planned…

The original plan was simple - pick up the crates, put them in the car, drive them home, and then load them into our "music library." There was an empty space that would easily accommodate six stacked crates. So I made the long drive to Aurora in the li’l woman’s old station wagon. When I got there, looking at the pallet, the crates appeared to look a little slanted. When Karalee and I started taking the plastic off of the pallet that was holding the vinyl it appeared that extra boards had been placed along the sides, maybe to sturdy the load. As more plastic was removed I realized that they weren't extra boards, but the crates themselves - they had started to fall apart. We attempted to carry one crate to the car, and it more or less disintegrated before we could load it in - poor Karalee had to support the load, while I frantically grabbed handfuls of records and loaded them into the car. All of the crates were in this shape, reduced to so much kindling. I attempted to pick up a few of the crates, and they would come apart in my hands. In the end, they served to hold the vinyl in place and prevent the records from flying everywhere on their journey to Colorado. I ended up just loading stacks of records into the back of the car by hand, it was more or less impossible to keep track of order. Once loaded in, I put the remains of the crates on top of the records for the drive home. I drove home and pulled the car into the garage.

When I got home, I realized that the destruction of the crates had rendered my original plan null and void. Where in the world was I going to put the records once I loaded them inside? As luck would have it, I have a metal shelving unit designed for holding LP’s. I've never been really happy with these shelves, and was using them to store cd box sets and various knick knacks. The box sets were stacked on top and in a few other spots in the room, and the toys tossed into a box. These shelves were finally going to get used for their originally intended purpose! Once the shelves were cleared off and dusted, I went back outside and tossed the crate remains on the back patio. I went back to the garage and weighed my options - should I just load the records out as they are, and go through it all later? My anal retentive nature ruled that out, so I found some boxes, and looking at the mass of vinyl started painstakingly pulling out the records in alphabetical order - the way I had loaded the records in, I would be able to find large sections that were already in order. Then I'd load them into the boxes, carry them inside, and put the records on the shelves. This took me about 3 hours. Strangely enough, the shelving unit almost seemed designed for this mass inheritance of vinyl. Once loaded in, the records filled the bottom four shelves and most of the fifth and top shelf.

I eventually salvaged four of the demolished crates from the remains – lots of sawing and hammering for a guy who is not all that handy with tools. I cut the boards down so that they were the same size as the crates I already had and they stacked quite nicely. (I always cut down my crates so that they would fit in the back seat of my old car, and also because it made them more sturdy.) I was also able to make a smaller fifth crate that I’ll eventually find a use for. I’ve had a fun time going through the old records, and have found quite a few gems. Oh, and I’ve had a good laugh as I’ve come across some of the joke birthday presents that I gave Kerry back in college (ah, the 99 and 25 cent bins, an endless source of entertainment…). There are some doubles of records I already had, which I knew would be the case, so I do have a bit of weeding to do. The whole process has been a lot of fun (I’m one of those guys who can browse through record bins for hours and stay entertained), and it should keep me busy for some time. Thanks Kerry! Your records seem quite happy in their new home.