DAZE WORK: Disappearing discs disappoint

Hate to admit it, but sometimes I can be a day late and a dollar short when it comes to certain things.

Like with the NFL’s Chargers moving to Los Angeles. It’s been at least two years now and a still refer to them as San Diego. Likewise I still call it a Nestle’s Crunch Bar, not “Crunch.”

And the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Well, you can forget that ever catching on ...

Getting to the point, last spring a large tree limb got the best of my Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. The convertible and its thrifty 64,000 miles was deemed a total loss by Jake, from State Farm. It had already been hauled off from my driveway, awaiting a repair estimate at the York body shop when I got the bad news that the 2002 Spyder was being totaled.

I was able to go and clean out the trunk and the console of all the trinkets I’d collected there, including a basketball bottle opener on a key chain promoting Coors and a few Dixie Chopper goodies from my days there.

But it wasn’t until a couple days later that I realized I’d never even thought about getting the CDs out of the six-CD changer in the car. All my favorite music was in there, greatest hits albums by the Beach Boys, Tom Petty, The Who and Jimmy Buffett, as well as a John Fogerty solo album, and one of local bluesman Tad Robinson’s first CDs.

The cassette tape slot held an Eagles’ greatest hits album that had to be all but worn out. I played the dickens out of that cassette while taking oldest daughter Kara around to look at colleges during her senior year of high school.

So I zipped out to York’s and went back behind the old Bill Robertson building where the car had been sitting. But it was gone, along with all my favorite music -- all the music that seems to make the sun a little brighter as you drive. All the tunes that make you want to drive a little faster. You know what I mean. I defy you to stay under the speed limit when “Vehicle” by the Ides of March or “Hurts So Good” by John Mellencamp comes on the radio.

So I had no choice but to rebuild my musical collection for the six-CD changer in my new Spyder. I never realized how difficult that was going to be.

Like I said, I can be a little late to the party sometimes. But have you tried to buy CDs these days?

I know everybody’s got their music on their phone or uses Spotify or iTunes or can ask Alexa to play whatever they want to hear whenever they want to hear it.

Some of us have SiriusXM Radio in the car, but when most of my driving finds the same song still playing when I get to work that was playing when I started the car, is there any need to pay for SiriusXM?

Now I did get a new CD for my birthday recently with the latest musical stylings of my neighbor, bluesman Tad Robinson, who I have seen more of this sumer and fall as he works in his yard instead of being on the road, out singing in our world of COVID. Talk about singing the blues.

Meanwhile, thinking it had the best CD selection locally since Downbeat Records is no more, I started my search at Walmart, looking high and low through the electronics section for the CD aisle. There used to be hundreds of CDs at Walmart. Country music was always on one aisle, rock ‘n’ roll on another. There were Christmases that just about all my kids asked for were CDs, so we’d head to Target or Best Buy to score some hits.

Now I was lucky to find about a dozen offerings on an end cap. I did snag the Creedence Clearwater Revival greatest hits album for $9.95, so it was a victory of sorts.

Finally I decided to try the used CD route, reasoning if people are listening electronically, they’ve probably dumped their old CDs. Goodwill, Rescued Treasures and the Beyond Homeless thrift store ought to yield a musical bounty.

All I found mostly were Christian music, Christmas albums and a lot of bad country singers’ CDs. And really, did America need The Chipmunks’ greatest hits on CD?

It might be time to call in Indiana Jones for this crusade.

I’m already thinking, maybe it might just be easier to find these albums on vinyl or old eight-tracks.

However, at Goodwill I was able to find a Mamas and Papas greatest hits CD, still sealed and bearing its original $5.95 price tag, for just $1.99.

On my second visit to Goodwill, I thought I had scored again, finding a Jimmy Buffett’s greatest hits at the low-low price of $1.99.

It was the only purchase I had as I stood in line, chatting with the lady in front of me, telling her what I was up to before opening up the CD case to peer inside.

You guessed it, no CD. So I tossed the empty case on the counter and left, another speed bump in my quest for in-car music.

Like I said (in my best Andy Rooney curmudgeon tone), have you tried to buy a music CD lately?