Me and my buddies from shop class sang this at the junior high talent assembly. Our band was the Beach Balls, vetoed by the elder teacher with glitzy cat-eye glasses that hovered over the production and basically censored our really good work. The word “balls” was too radical so I suggested instead of Beach Balls, how about the Sons of the Beaches? “Sons”?, “beaches”?”...nothing satanic there! We settled for the Leech Boys.

My first memories were of 78 rpms with about 25% of the Mom/Dad record club collection being the standard 33 ⅓ rpm vinyl that prevail to this day.

By the time I was old enough to buy a record, 33 ⅓ albums were the norm and the coolest things ever invented. But for affordability? Forty-fives. And you could avoid the filler crap songs on albums that were fairly common in those days. Buy the songs you liked, avoid paying more for lame filler songs on the LP and when the album you liked came out…buy it and listen with friends.

Here’s more from a random grab of songs from my ancient gallery of 45s From an Old Box. These are the songs I liked, maybe didn’t buy but currently am holding…waiting for the unknown owner from 1963 to call.

Please enjoy the memories and scratches, the way we used to listen with gum.