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Thursday, May 17, 2012 |
| Want A Free 78 RPM Collection? |
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Well it looks like we’ve sold our ranch in Texas. It was a small, 63-acre ranch about 20 miles outside of Austin, on the San Gabriel River where it’s joined by Berry Creek. A large number of Texas “rivers” almost run dry during the droughts that occur with regularity, but my river always had at least eight feet of water for the entire length of my 2,200 feet of riverfront. In addition, there are three ponds on the property that did not go dry during the drought that had 90-plus days of 100-plus-degree weather last year. I was worried, but unlike over 90% of the farm ponds in the County, my ponds still had water in them. Also, there are over 100 native pecan trees along the river as a result of the river overflowing during heavy storms and depositing pecans along the shore. These trees are mature shade trees that line the riverbank. There are also some soft-shell pecan trees, planted decades ago by a former owner, and numerous oak trees, with one tree estimated by the County Arborist at 250 years old.
We have owned this property for over 11 years, and I have lived there for six of the last 10 years. There were only two neighbors when we first moved there -- two widows who lived in the only other houses on the street that dead-ended at the river. One of the two women, Mrs. Evelyn Birklebach, was in her early 80s and still cut her three-acre lawn riding her mower. She also used her shotgun to kill snakes whenever they were unfortunate to be spotted anywhere on her property. She would call me and ask me to remove them since she didn’t like to touch them. I would also help her harvest her peach and pear trees, which would result in a couple of fine homemade pies.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Birklebach was found on the side of the highway by a police officer and couldn’t remember who she was or where she lived. Her family chose to put her in an assisted-living facility and sell their family land. Evelyn is still there but doesn’t recognize you when you go to visit her. I will go tell her goodbye when I return to coordinate the move of our belongings to Los Angeles, even though she won’t know me.
The other lady, Mrs. Anderson, was married to a lifer in the Army, and they settled down in Texas after traveling all over the world. She was younger, maybe in her late 60s, and still looked good and went to the dances that they had at the community center. She was the belle of the ball in Sun City. We used to have both of these ladies over for dinner or family cookouts, and they really appreciated the attention. Mrs. Anderson found out that I had been in the music business and that I knew about the artists from the early eras of Country and Pop before Rock & Roll. She asked me to come over to her house, and she took me into a storage shed that was full of shelves with 78 RPM records from that era. Her husband loved music and bought these records in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s.
But Mrs. Anderson had to move to Houston and sell her place in order to help her daughter, who is a single mother with two pre-teen boys. I taught these boys how to fish on my ponds when anything cast into the water produced a result. The change was not good for her, and she passed away within a year. When her daughter came to clean out her house, she gave me a letter that left all the 78 RPM records to me. After packing the records into 40-plus boxes, I realized that there were over 4,000 records.
Nowadays, 78 RPM records aren’t as much in demand, since most of the people who remember those songs are gone, and collectors are only interested in the obscure blues songs, not the artists who were popular in that day. I have tried to donate these records to a music school, which didn’t have the storage space, and to Goodwill, but they don’t have people looking for 78s much anymore. When I move out in late June, I am going to have to just take the discs to the county dump. I hate doing that because I perceive them as part of music history, even though they are popular artists and songs from that day, not collectibles.
So I’m asking my readers, who are all music-industry or radio people, if they are interested in this collection. I don’t want to be paid for them, but you will have to pay to have them shipped. If you have any interest or want a partial listing of the records, please contact me at sykojohnny@yahoo.com. Thanks.
John A. Fagot, Jr.
Airplay Information Resources
818.219.4291
sykojohnny@airblasts.com
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