The Dancing Girl

She's three years old almost four, and she's spinning across the floor with her arms outstretched from her sides. Her blonde hair lifts off her shoulders while Eric Clapton plays the blues in the background. Her own voice carries over the music light and full of life. She's singing "Let it Go" her favorite song from her favorite movie while Eric is singing "Let it Grow". I'm sitting across from her on my favorite stool, a piece of furniture that features a wooven patchwork pattern that makes me think it is from the nineteen seventies, with a wide smile spread across my face. The music she's dancing too plays on a vintage stereo, that if it weren't for my brother I probably never would have put together. My youngest daughter Addi doesn't know that. She only knows she loves listening to it and dancing.

It's Saturday morning, and her mom is at work which means it's daddy daughter time and that means loud music in the mornings and daddy adventures in the afternoon. Now, you might be asking what daddy adventures are. Well don't worry those will be explained in a later article if more than three people read this one. I'm kidding. Daddy adventures are basically anything we do. They are just my way of making anything even a quick run to the store fun for my daughter. But that's not why we're here. Today is all about the music.

Every Saturday and every Sunday morning for that matter the stereo downstairs comes on after we've had breakfast and it's time to clean the house. Addi is a great help too. She vacuums, cleans her room, and picks up her toys. I will admit sometimes it's an effort to keep her focus, but in the end with a little prodding she always exceeds my expectations and impresses. Just to be clear Addi plays and has fun the entire time we straighten the house. We are a family of five so, every morning comes with a little clean up.

By the time I'm done with the house and she's picked up her Barbie's Addi has usually stated at least five times. "I want to listen to my Frozen, album daddy." And though I've heard the record more than I care to admit, I can't resist her sweet charm and we listen to her album, more than once. But after that it's my turn and we can go anywhere from Etta James to Birdy to the Lumineers.

Just like the stereo Addi doesn't know that these Saturdays almost never happened. Music had fallen out of my life for a long time. I think my lowest point was after my ex-wife sold the guitar, I spent a summer paying for when I was sixteen. When that guitar was sold, I think I lost the last bit of the person I had been before my marriage went bad. Eventually after 15 years after trying to save something that was already gone, I decided a divorce was the only answer and that started a journey to the mornings Addi and I spend together.

Divorce is a lonely time, any one whose been through one can tell you it is. As I went through mine and spent more time alone, I found that I started to rediscover parts of myself that I had forgotten. I started working out at a gym again and on a whim, I bought an Oscar Shmidt acoustic guitar on eBay. That acoustic led to a Fender Telecaster and a small amp and Music started to find its way back into my life.

Fast forward a couple years to my brothers living room, remarried with a one-year-old daughter, two step daughters, and a son from my first marriage, and I thought I was doing pretty good. But I didn't know my older brother was about to show me something was definitely missing from my life. He had bought a Kenwood KR-4400 stereo at yard sale for $25 and he wanted to show me how it sounded. I was curious, he had been raving about since he bought it, so we went over to his sitting room off the kitchen. I can still remember the exact song he played, The Smashing Pumpkins, Mayonnaise. From that moment I was hooked. The warmth the ambiance I had never heard anything like it. I left that visit with one thought in my mind I had to have a stereo like that.

The next 24 months and still to this day I spent searching for receivers, turntables, speakers, and anything else vintage stereo related. I even managed to get a Sony receiver from my parent's attic I listened to when I was fifteen, twenty-nine years ago. I currently have two stereos and enough equipment to drive my wife, Jessica crazy. Of course, she might not admit it right off if you ask her but she listens to the stereos every week too and Addi gets her to play her favorite songs from her favorite Disney movies on a streaming station from Pandora.

Music has brought so much beauty to my life. I love sharing it with my daughters and my son and anyone else who will listen. I love discovering new artists and hearing great music for the first time. I would recommend to anyone to put down the Beats and the Air pods, there's nothing wrong with them I listen to them myself, but there is just something you can't get from the modern stuff you can from a vintage system. Give it a try I promise you won't be disappointed personally I recommend a Frankenstien system meaning one put together with components and speakers from different brands. Whatever you do enjoy life and find new ways to do it.