la-la-la-lala-la-la-lala-la-la-lala-la-la.................................al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al-al
cause there ain't noone for to give you no pain...............niap on uoy evig ot rof enoon t'nia ereht esuac
in the desert you can't remember your name..................eman ruoy rebmemer t'nac uoy tresed eht ni
it felt good to be out of the rain............................................niar eht fo tuo eb ot doog tlef ti
ya see I've been through the desert...................................tresed eht hguorht neeb ev'i ees ay
on a horse with no name.....................................................eman on htiw esroh a no


Adaline and I sat on the edge of the bed, cleaning her grandmother's old record player. I'm sure that it hadn't been used in years. She got it from her mother when her grandmother passed away last month. It was going to be thrown away, but Adaline asked to save it.

"It's always been my favorite thing around Grannie's house," she said. "She always used to play records when I was little. I would sit on her lap and play tic-tac toe with her and listen to Benny Goodman or Ella Fitzgerald. Sometimes we would listen to Buddy Holly or the Animals. Grannie was so hip," she paused for a moment, then brought a big smile over her face. "One time Uncle Jimmy brought home a Led Zepplin album and started playing it on Grannie's record player. Oh I remember her running in the room screaming telling him that it would ruin the record player because it's grooves were so thick. Uncle Jimmy just laughed and laughed at that ludicrous thought. Oh she had a fit!"

We took it apart, replaced the worn out record needle, gave the whole thing a polish. When we were finished making it look nice, we decided to finally do the honors of playing the first record on it.

In all the excitement of getting the record player, we failed to take Adaline's grandmother's records with us from her mom's house. Adaline sat back down on the bed, disappointed. Records are obsolete, so it's not like we had a whole bunch of records of our own to use. Thinking we were going to have to wait to play anything on it until we could get her mom to ship the records out here to Denver.

I thought for a moment. "Hold on Addy. I'll be right back." I hopped up and ran downstairs to the basement, to an old box that I had packed things from my room at my parents house in. Searching through the baseball trophies and the science project ribbons, I found an old pair of headphones and an America album.

Coming back upstairs, I shouted, "I think I found something we can use." Out of breath, I sat back down on the bed. "Now forgive me, it's probably a little scratched," I pulled the record out of it's sleeve. "Okay, it seems to be a little warped too, but it should do."

I placed the record on the player as gently as I could and placed the needle on the outside edge. I turned the machine on and let it play.

Mumbled and jumbled words squirted out from the built-in speakers, as distorted as could be.

al-al-al-al-al-al-al
niap on uoy evig ot rof... enoon t'nia ereht esuac

Ah, due to the distortion it was playing backwards. I tried to adjust it, but it didn't work. I looked at Adaline franticly, trying to apologize with my eyes.

"It's alright Cole, you silly goose. It's kinda....neat." She pulled me on to the bed and kissed me softly on the lips.

She sat for a moment then tried to sing along. "Mmain....terzed...."

I laughed. She laughed. We flopped back on the bed and spent the afternoon listening to A Horse With No Name play backwards. It was beautiful. It is still my favorite song.


Other nodes in this series of stories include, in chronological order:

I knew enough about him to know his name and what kind of snowball he could make
Get off me Daddy, you're crushin' my cigarettes!
She makes sniffing sounds, and I don't know if she's snorting coke or weeping
Cut off that stupid goatee and move on
I come home, she lifted up her wings. I guess that this must be the place.
A Horse With No Name backwards
Ginny and Lola don't work on Thursdays. Sorry, Sugar.

And More To Come.

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