[78-L] TOM EDISON'S GREATEST HITS

[Rodger J. Holtin]

I love to tell the story of how I was duped by this thing. 

I was a freshman in high school when it came out. I had read Tin Foil to Stereo and had heard that supposedly there was a box of these things somewhere buried in Tom’s workshops. I had also been reading Jim Walsh in Hobbies. I was standing in the record shop trying to digest the album cover notes when Mom motioned it was time to go. So I hurried to the checkout. The notes, as I read them quickly, certainly reminded me of Walsh’s rambling style and I was taken in. 

I got home and slapped it on the turntable and was immediately shocked at “Ah, brandy Alexander, please.”  I was incensed and ripped it off the turntable and tossed it in the trash can. I didn’t wait to hear any more of it. 

I cooled down a couple days later and finally listened to the rest of it, most of which I simply didn’t understand. I still don’t know why, but I kept it anyway. 

I remember when I came home from college my second or third summer home (this would’ve been 7 or 8 years later) I found it and put it on and played it all the way through for the first time. I had tears running down my cheeks and wished it had been a two-record set. I was a psychology major and the Pavlov track did me in. 

I put it on cassette and took it back to college so my buddies at the radio station could hear the Marconi track. My roommate was a music major and he couldn’t stop playing the William S Gilbert track. They were hooked, also.

When I brought the girlfriend home the first time and showed her the record collection that was the first record I played for her.  To this day all of my kids can quote most of it just like they also quote Star Wars. Geronimo seems to have been their favorite but the voice student gravitated to the Jenny Lind track. It is a classic throughout. 

Rodger Holtin
78-L Member Since MCMXCVIII

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