for him [bxb] ✔️

3 // music store

My mother and father had always known I had a deep relationship with music. It had been my ultimate dream to create the sound in which I could release my feelings into and play until my heart felt content with my creation. On each birthday and each Hanukkah, I would ask the members of close and distant family for anything to do with music. Anything from an instrument to sheet music to vinyls to album artwork. Each year, my parents rewarded me with a different instrument of choice- a piano, guitar, violin, bass, cello, drums, clarinet, trumpet, microphone and so forth until I had learned to play every instrument available at Jon's Music Store.

Once I learned to play every instrument, I strived to learn to listen to every genre of music.

I walked into the store, fifteen years of age and with eyes of wonder as they searched the dusty racks and shelves for every and any artist to hear. I browsed after school and on the weekends, during the summer and around the winter. It was an obsession within the making.

As I grew older, my collection grew with everyone from Jimi Hendrix and The Beach Boys to Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. Every album was collected on vinyls and cassette tapes.

It was a surprise when I saw him at the store one day, shifting through the R&B and Soul rack. It was a bigger surprise when I saw him the next week looking through Folk Rock.

Curiosity was alive that next week when I saw his hands flipping through vinyls in 40's Pop and it was between the aisles of Country and Soundtracks that I first spoke to him.