The Prodigal Record Album

I'm pretty sure the Jean-Luc Ponty album above was mine even before I bought it used a few months ago. I sold it in the nineties at a garage sale in Fayetteville and bought it again a few months ago in Eastwood. The prodigal record has returned. It's a miracle.

Prodigal turns out to mean spending recklessly. It refers to the son's behavior while gone, not his return. Color me surprised. There's also this: a person who leaves home and behaves recklessly, but later makes a repentant return. Then I'm the prodigal one who recklessly sold my records and turntable and waited over twenty years to repent last January and begin buying albums again.

(I'm not all that repentant. I never expected to return to records and didn't want to lug them through two moves or store them. Who knows how way leads onto way?)

As for what makes me think this is my old copy of Individual Choice, note the white record sleeve. That, my friends, is a VRP anti-static sleeve from the same people who created the beautiful walnut-handled Discwasher record cleaner (which turns out not have been a very good record cleaning system but most of us used and loved it). VRP sleeves weren't common but I had them on most of my albums, including this one.

The record is in good condition, as was mine. The cover is as worn as mine. I'm no collector. I buy records to play them, but I take care to keep them sounding good.

Whether it's the really the same copy is impossible to know for sure, but I choose to believe. It's feels good, so why not believe?

When I gave it up, CDs were the way to go, man. No doubt. Then came Napster, then iTunes, and now streaming which makes listening convenient but sacrifices every other aspect of music. Records bring all of that back and I enjoy the inconvenience. I'll keep it this time.

The record may or may not have returned to me, but I have happily returned to records and it feels good to be welcomed home.