I was looking for something last week in one of my drawers and ran across a file of writings that Maria had given to me. They were written by her for her English class, English 101, when she was a student at Columbia Greene College. Here's a part of what she wrote:

"When I was a child, my mother belonged to the Columbia House Record Club. Once a month, Nick our mailman, would deliver to her a flat, square package. Sometimes it was the selection of the Month, which meant she hadn't mailed in an order. Usually she returned these, although I do remember her keeping a few. Most of the arrivals were long awaited and most desired. James Taylor, Carol King, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, and Bob Dylan all came into our lives this way. If we happened to be home from school when the latest album came, we were treated to an impromptu party. She remove it lovingly from its outer wrappings, carefully put it on the old black stereo, and after blowing once or twice on the needle, begin to play it. Just once how I wish I could return, spiritlike, to peer through the window and see the five of us dancing barefoot in that livingroom of my childhood. We were joyous."

I first was introduced to the Columbia Record Club by my sister Barbara. She was working at Texaco at the time, was making "good money" so had enrolled in the club. In 1955 the Club was still in its early stage, but already had more than 128,000 members. Barbara bought Frank Sinatra, Broadway hits - I knew and still remember all the words to Pajama Game and My Pal Joey. One time she got Rimsky Korsakov Scheherazade (probably didn't send back the monthly selection), but I loved the mysterious haunting sound of it. That was what was different about Columbia. They had "Negative option billing practice" where every few weeks you would get a postcard in the mail with the monthly selection. You had to either mark NO and get nothing that month, or pick another selection. It could get ahead of you, if you weren't prompt in mailing back the selection card and usually once you got the package, you opened it, thought what the hell, put it on, and then you were stuck with it. Weird Al Yankovic has a song in which he described the Columbia Record club as a larger commitment than getting married. And it was. It didn't take long for the records to add up both in quantity and in money. In its hey day, which Maria writes about in the 1970's there were more than 3 million members.

Of course there is no such thing (at least I don't think so) of the Record Club today. With the internet music is a completely different animal these days. But there was something, something special about getting the music in the mail, putting it on the record player and hearing Cat Stevens right in your living room.