[78-L] Most disgusting place in your record searches

[Thatcher Graham]

I travel for work and have seen some pretty vile spots around the 
country. One stands out in my mind.

It used to be a motel I think.  It was on the 3400 block of Cajon 
Boulevard, San Bernadino, CA. When I happened by it was having a yard 
sale. There was a big sign in the yard, and a few tables.  I stopped and 
got out of the car and wished I hadn't.

Two meth-heads with burned out front teeth greeted me at the gate and 
offered to sell me anything including their big neon hotel sign. In 
retrospect they may have been squatters. Every window in every building 
was broken, every room was filled with years of leaves, dust sand 
garbage and the detritus that only junkies can leave around. There were 
heaps of records, vinyl, 45s, and 78s.  I rolled up my sleeves and took 
a quick look through the least filthy stack of 78s.  I bought a few I 
thought could be cleaned and promptly left.

-- TG




On 4/6/2011 8:37 AM, David Lennick wrote:
> The bats were still in that barn when the original collector was still dealing.
> But the records were in much nicer condition then. (The son is still active and
> has an ad on Kijiji so we'll just assume everyone knows who we're talking about.)
>
> dl
>
> On 4/6/2011 3:10 AM, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:
>> I once visited a barn in upstate New York to look for records.  It turned out
>> that the owner of this barn was the son of a far more organized collector.  But
>> in the son's hands, it had disintegrated into a mountain of abused records.  I
>> found many records which appeared to have been in excellent condition when he
>> acquired them but now were broken, or destroyed by the elements.  They were so
>> disorganized that I wouldn't have been surprised if he ploughed them in with a
>> front loader.  There were different rooms segregated by label.  He told me that
>> the Bluebirds were all on the second floor.  When I went up there, my throat
>> burning, I found that piles of Bluebirds were covered with a half inch of bat
>> poop.  I didn't even bother to look.
>>
>> I don't think this trumps the old lady's retired chicken coop but it was
>> certainly disgusting.
>>
>> db
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