One thing about going down the rabbit hole, sometimes you find a rabbit.
That’s all well and good. But what do you do with a rabbit?
Readers of this column know the plan for me. I will continue to count down my vinyl records until this degenerative brain disease — Lewy body dementia — won’t let me.
I embarked on this incredible journey into my life through my records after I was diagnosed about three years ago. I call this public awareness campaign ‘My Vinyl Countdown.’ My 678 vinyl recordings spent nearly three decades unused in boxes after I purchased them as a music-loving youth in the 1970s and 1980s.
People ask if I have CDs. Heck yeah. I had a carousel that held 300 discs at one time. I embraced the digital age, and bought an iPod that holds thousands of songs. But when I was hit with this diagnosis I resurrected or reconstituted an idea I had a long time ago: Start a blog and one- by- one chronicle my albums and possibly link to eBay to sell. I thought of that 10 years ago and never did it.
But now it’s up and running where I iintersperse my reviews with other stories about basketball, family, and music. Of course the way it turned out, from a readership and marketing standpoint, is much better. Now I have a cause — Lewy bodydementia awareness. Now I have a deadline. And now I have drama.
Much better than just talking about my records with no other context. Not that I would have selected this particular method — actually getting the disease — just to raise awareness. But now that I have this disease, I feel like making something useful out of it. With about 300 to go, I’m more than halfway there.