48 years ago today, I bought my first stereo: a simple Radio Shack manual record player which sold for $29.95. Even so, it was a quantum leap forward from the General Electric mono player which I had been using since Grandma and Grandpa Durigan gave it to me for Chirstmas, 1968.
When you’re 8 years old, $29.95 is a lot of money. Plus sales tax, which was 4% in Minnesota at the time. It took me about 6 months to save enough for my new phonograpg. I still remember how proud I was to walk into Radio Shack, open my pockets, and put a stack of mostly $1 bills on the counter! This little stereo served me well for 3 years until I upgraded to a Lloyds unit, complete with an 8-track deck that played AND recorded tapes! More on that in a future post…