2021-07-11
Olivia Luz Goes Old School

OLIVIA LUZ GOES OLD SCHOOL

This afternoon Olivia went down to the old dilapidated house by our cactus garden and found a bucket and an old cassette tape recorder with an AM/FM radio among the rubble.

Over the moon, she ran into the house to show me. I was 99% sure it wasn’t going to work, but her excitement was contagious and being that I did not want to be the party pooper, I decided to insert some batteries anyway.

Lo and behold, although this thing was dirty and dusty and quite ancient in terms of electronics-and there was no battery compartment cover to boot - after putting in two new batteries…the red power light lit up in the front, indicating something was working.

However, there was no sound. Ugh. But I did not give up. After examining it and seeing that it had every high tech option that a Walkman might have by the mid 80s (cassette player, tape recorder, AM and FM radio with “stereo” option - just no speaker), I noticed that it had an earphone/headphone plug.

So, being that I had organized my electronics not too long ago, I knew exactly where I might find some speakers that I could plug in. What I found was far better: a faux old school phone that had both a speaker and a microphone, even though we only needed the former.

When I first pushed in the 3.5mm plug I only got static, but once we moved the tuner and volume dial the broadcasts came in loud and clear.

With a little scotch tape, ingenuity and schoolgirl enthusiasm, we turned this piece of junk into a genuine treasure and Olivia finally got the “phone” she’s been asking for!