It’s April 16th, you know what that means! Happy Record Store Day!

The music shops don’t open for another couple hours, but in many ways, I feel like I went to the best vinyl shop in town last night, my grandparents.

My grandparents just moved up from California, and as it turns out, my grandfather was an avid record buyer back when. I’m talking 4 or 5 boxes of LPs, 45s, and 78s. I almost cried it was so beautiful. 

I found Elvis, Dylan, Cash,  Temptations, Everly Bros., Davis, Cooke, Eagles, Domino! I couldn’t even believe it. Not all of them were in the best shape but a lot of them were. My grandpa was kind enough to even let me walk out with a few of them (which severely helped my pathetic collection).

The best part of the whole night, was when my grandpa came downstairs and joined me as I looked through the boxes. He had as much fun as I was having. He pulled the record out, sang a lyric or two than passed it to me.

My grandma said that every Friday, after he would get paid, they would run down to the local record shop and buy a new record. They would run home, turn it on, and then dance the night away. As his face lit up with each old record he’d pull from the box, I realized that music meant more to him then I ever knew. The excitement and the joy over explaining different artists, who played for what, what they were known for… I felt like I was looking in a mirror. We lived under the same roof for a decade, and here we were both sharing a passion for music that I never even knew existed.

That is the power of a record. It lasts throughout generations and brings people together.

Though my grandparents are going through a hard time, we had fun in the midst of chaos as we looked through a treasure chest of memories. My grandpa is planning on selling a lot of these records, but I could tell he was happy to give me the ones I was excited about.

Go to a local record store and buy a record today. Take it home, listen to it, take care of it, and pass it on. Someday your grandchildren will thank you, and realize that you were way cooler than they ever knew.