When I purchased my first brand new second-hand stereo, a Curtis Mathias combination television stereo, I was a pretty excited young man.

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

When I purchased my first brand new second-hand stereo, a Curtis Mathias combination television stereo, I was a pretty excited young man. I was then teaching at Troth Street School on the outskirts of Riverside.

The big decision facing me was what album to purchase. My budget allowed for one each pay check. That was my hope. My "bachelor apartment" cost $75 a month then. It was located in a Spanish-style setting with a wide stairway leading to the second floor and an open courtyard and palm trees surrounding the grounds. The streets were not bordered with covered snow pines and leafless trees that I had left behind a few weeks earlier. In fact it was about this same time of the year in 1966.

Herb Albert’s "Tijuana Brass" was my first selection. That album had the stereo to itself that first month. There was also a much wider selection of radio stations and new songs.

I can’t remember which month I purchased a Frank Sinatra album. Maybe I was trying to be a romantic. This one had the song that begins, "When I was 17 it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small town boys and … "

Then 17 was a few years behind me and I could easily remember those days. It was those days in Austin where Brighams (now a parking lot) was our first stop after school once we had turned away from varsity sports for pink lemonades, the standard soda of the day. After the excitement of trying to be cool and impress the girls in there with our stupid wit and routine checks in the mirror to see that the hair looked right – especially by Rake – we made our way to the pool hall and made rude peer comments.

We went to the Spot. The Pacelli boys went to Barkoffs.

We, the Spot guys, worked our way from the straight pool tables in the back of the pool hall where we developed our eye. From there we advanced next to the snooker tables to refine our eye. Here the balls and holes were smaller. One had to be more precise. Eventually, we made our way to the billiard table, the pool table with three balls and no holes with the help of Bob Hardy who coached us along the way. He also gave us the adult support and kidding we needed then.

George Bronner, the proprietor, was pretty patient with us and a good shooter himself. He could also kick the light switch string suspended from the light well above his head, an act none of us could match. He could also hear a ball that "jumped the table" and hit the floor a mile away – a 10-cent fine.

At a penny a minute to play, we could play there quite awhile.

Then there was the Tower.

One still hears people talk about the Tower, the teen center above George’s Pizza across from the old courthouse, the one that used to fit under the dome that now sits at the fairgrounds. The old courthouse was a charming building unlike the "’50s/’60s institutional one" that replaced it.

Jim Nelson and I went to the Tower the first Sunday it opened. We were in eighth-grade. I don’t think we missed a Friday night there until we graduated. We were always under the watchful eye of Clarence Nybo.

Back to the song – I think Sinatra then sings about being in his 20s and what happens then. I was in my 20s searching for romance at the time.

Eventually he gets to the "autumn of his life" and now those words have more meaning these days.

In between, he talks about limousines and I can kind of relate to that but not the way the leader of "the Rat Pack." One time I wasvisiting my brother and sister-in-law in Chicago. Their new van broke down and Jeanne, my wife who was posing as my sister-in-law, insisted that they arrange a limousine to transport us from the train station to the their home in Wheaton. They did.

And this fall I rode along to the airport in the limo with the alumni representative and Herald reporter to greet the Eberharts.

I suspect Sinatra had other intentions.

Then I stated collecting Dylan albums. I still do.

Maybe this all stems from my early childhood when my Dad had a collection of Czech records that I played on an earlier record player; they were 78s. The knob to open the player was busted off and I managed to bend every butter knife in the house trying to open it up as I remember my folks telling me.

Or maybe it was sitting in the front yard watching Johnny Western drive by in his 1953 red Buick convertible on his was to his KMMT TV show at the station south of town on the River Road.

That was before his "Have Gun Will Travel" theme song fame.

And somebody nabbed the Carole King CD that was on sale at Target … darn.

Bob Vilt’s column appears Tuesdays