“Whoa! That’s crazy!”

This is the common exclamation among Jeb’s 11-year old friends, when he decides to wow them with our family record player.

They’ve never seen vinyl. They have absolutely no clue as to how to put the needle on the record. They gather around as if observing something from outer space. Full of intrigue and gasping in amazement, they look at the turntable with as much awe as the most high-tech device they’ve only Googled about.

“But how does it work?” they ask, bewildered. “How does the sound just come off of that black disc?”

For them, it’s been a digital world most of their lives. Music libraries stored on a computer, playlists added and deleted to an iPad or smart phone. Seeing something tangible, technology that can be held in their hands, (particularly something that’s not cold and silver), is a foreign experience.

When I liken the vinyl record to a compact disc they start to grasp the concept of a recording being “pressed” to a medium that can playback.

“That’s so cool!”

I think so too.

Technology so old, it’s new.