Cassette Tape is 50!

The cassette tape is 50? It seems like yesterday it was 17 and playing in my pink cassette player. My children will never know the joy of trying to find a particular song on a cassette. Play, Fast Forward, Play, Fast Forward, Play, Rewind, Play, Fast Forward, Close Enough, Play. They don’t know what an alarm clock is either. I recently found one when while cleaning out a closet. My 6-year-old asked, “What on earth is that?” I explained how it’s like the App on my phone. “You set the time and it makes a loud buzzing noise.” You can also wake to music on the radio. It never worked for me. I would just end up dancing in my dream with Kirk Cameron to a Stevie B song.

The cassette tape was a step up from the 8 track tape. A piece of scotch tape could change Janet Jackson’s “Control” into American Top 40, radio commercials and all. The Long Distance Dedication was replaced by email and Zoloft.

If you owned a tape player you needed pencils. How else could you wind the tape up when it got stuck in the machine? Cd’s blew our minds. Mp3’s were like magic. Still, there will never be anything like a cassette tape. Let’s face it, you just can’t profess your love with an ITunes playlist.