Rusty Saber: Life without e-mail? Say it isn't so, Joe

To most folks, I'm a lost cause a permanently out-to-lunch nerd hopelessly mired in the 20th century. It's probably true. Why, I don't even have an e-mail address.

I'll pause while you gasp in disbelief.

Doubtless, it's hard to face the absurd truth that a normal, or almost normal, human being could possibly live and breathe without e-mail. However, I don't have to go through life completely devoid of e-mail; my wife has an address.

Based on my extremely sparse association with her e-mail, most messages are unwanted advertisements. Well, my mailbox is already stuffed with enough unwanted ads to choke two landfills, and between sunup and three hours past sundown, tele-marketers stand in line to call to offer stuff I don't want. Why should I add to the cacophony via computer?

Now, I'm not on an anti-e-mail crusade; I receive messages from readers via SBJ's e-mail. I just don't need an address.

My backwardness doesn't stop with e-mail. I'm so behind the times that I still play phonograph records on my stereo. That's right, like barbarians from the distant past, I put records on the turntable, drop the needle gently and soak up the sounds on what were once state-of-the-art speakers. It sounds primordial, but I do it.

Before you put me so far back in the Dark Ages that sunshine would have to be flown in to me by a NASA rocket, I do own some CDs. My car has both CD and cassette players, and I can play both in the house.

Alas, when I am at home listening to my kind of music, jazz, I prefer my record collection, gained over most of my adult life, which spans a lot of years.

Some of my fellow jazz enthusiasts have transferred their records to tape. I have a decent collection of cassette tapes, but I still prefer the old-fashioned 33-1/3-rpm records.

Cassettes, or the more modern CDs, are more convenient; I know that. It's like some drivers prefer their cars to have manual five-speed transmissions rather than the more "convenient" automatic transmissions. They want the feel of being in control of their cars, not the other way around.

This predilection I understand. I became a sports-car fanatic at about the same time I discovered jazz. I have owned a variety of sports cars over the years. Today, however, rather than a sports car, I have a sedan with automatic everything. But I drool at the sight of a sports car. You can take the man out of the sports car, but you can't take the sports car out of the man.

The same philosophy applies to this jazz purist. My jazz record collection is very large and dates back to a time so long ago that Bill Clinton had not yet discovered girls. The early albums were gathered when I was in the Navy. Storage space and record players were in short supply.

My wife likes to tell the story about when we first began dating after my Navy discharge, I had a marvelous record collection; however, I had no hi-fi (that's what they were called then). Ironically, she had a new hi-fi, but practically no record albums. As she says, this, plus our shared hatred of cucumbers, proved that we were made for each other. You know what? She was right!

CDs may have made record albums obsolete, but I prefer my records. It's a kick to take a record out of its jacket, gently cleaning and slipping it on the turntable; its a feeling much like shifting through the gears of a Porsche. I take pride when my records that may be more than 40 years old sound as clear and mellow as when they were new. A bunch of CDs will never replace my records.

Once, shortly after my wife and I were married, we heard on the radio that a tornado had been sighted. The announcer said, "Take cover!" We lived in a duplex with an unfinished basement. My wife carried to the basement what few valuables a young college couple possessed.

You know what I took to the basement my jazz records. What else? Thankfully, the tornado passed over. But had it hit, the collection would have been saved.

Tell me I'm lost in a time warp. Tell me what a backward clod I am; but you can't tell me by e-mail. I couldn't read it anyway. I'm listening to my records.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)