When I was a child, my dad worked for a while for the school system in maintenance. I remember he bought a cabinet model stereo and a wringer washing machine from Shoffner’s Furniture and Appliance. He had Irby Monroe make a stand for the small stereo to sit on so that I couldn’t reach inside and mess with the mechanics while those 33 1/3 RPM records were played. The joke was on Dad—I stood in a chair and watched the records spin on the turntable. I loved to listen to that stereo.
Dad didn’t work for the school system terribly long before he suffered an affliction that presented like a type of stroke. This resulted in his disability to work. Household funds were very strained, but my half-sister Ruby helped ensure that we didn’t lose the most necessary washing machine. The details of her assistance resulted in her acquiring the “disposable” stereo. Clean clothes were essential—playing records was not.
A few years later my dad bought me a portable RCA record player. Once again I could hear those wonderful albums that had been silent for so long. The record player looked like a small army-green suitcase or overnight bag when closed. It held a place of honor on top of my mother’s sewing machine cabinet in the bedroom from the time of its acquisition until it was replaced by a Quasar stereo that my mother bought for me on my eighteenth birthday. I still have that Quasar stereo, and it still plays records these forty years later.
I spent many hours listening to our few 33 1/3 RPM vinyl records on that record player and stereo. Occasionally the needle would wear out and need replacing. Off to Brown’s TV and Appliance she would go. Originally the record player came with a diamond-tipped needle. The first replacement was with a non-diamond-tipped needle, and there was a difference. There were sounds that could not be heard with the non-diamond tip. I grieved the loss of those sounds, but that needle was used until it wore out as well. We made sure the next replacement was with a diamond-tipped needle. The needle on the Quasar stereo has also undergone one replacement, also at Brown’s. It was gone for many weeks due to a shipping problem, and being reunited was almost like receiving the gift anew.
I would still have that portable record player, but a friend of my mother’s grieved my soul until I loaned him that record player and a few records. True to the nature of most such loans, I saw neither the records nor my treasured record player again. Thanks to Amazon.com and Lost and Found Records (located on Broadway in Knoxville next to Shoney’s), I have managed to replace the records, but I have not yet encountered that same model of record player.
In those days of my childhood and youth, items were taken care of and preserved. The generation who lived during World War II with its rations and shortages ensured that products were manufactured with pride and quality. Care was taken to extend the useful life of electronics and appliances to the maximum. Should my Quasar stereo need a new needle today, where would I send it to have it fixed? Where would I send my television, CD player, window air conditioner, or microwave for repairs?
The answer is—I don’t really know. So many of the items manufactured now have become disposable. It is generally cheaper to replace entire items than buy parts and expend the gasoline and time to find someone to make repairs. Many times expensive postage is necessary to return a product to the manufacturer.
There is also a question of life expectancy of modern appliances and entertainment devices. Not long ago, I heard of a lady who was needing repairs made to her refrigerator. She sought the advice of a local repairman, one of the few still to be found in the general public who was not affiliated with a company or organization. He asked the lady how long it had been since her refrigerator was purchased new. She replied about seven years. The repairman told her that was pretty much the life expectancy of that particular brand of appliance, and that she would be better off to replace the entire appliance than to keep making repairs every few months to replace parts that were nearing the end of their useful life.
More frightening to consider is human life expectancy. How disposable is mankind becoming? Are the chances of getting a liver transplant less at age seventy than age twenty? At age twenty, a human can be expected to have fifty potential years of work and life expectancy, during which time taxes are paid to governments to keep the (in)disposable services/society in business. At age seventy, most workers would be entering or nearing retirement, during which portion of their lives they would be drawing from government funds to sustain them in old age, the very funds to which they had contributed for the greater part of half a century.
Who decides mankind’s ultimate fate—doctors, insurance companies, the government? I spoke with a woman yesterday whose doctor told her that the treatment he was providing was not healing her affliction, just merely treating the symptoms. The doctor told her that as a requirement for payment for medical services, her insurance dictated that the treatments be administered five times before addressing the underlying condition could be undertaken. The lady asked the doctor if she could forego her insurance and pay for the necessary treatment out of pocket. The answer to that question is pending.
Life may get tedious, Dear Reader, even scary, but rest assured, there is a Higher Power that rules over all. To Him, we are not disposable. I leave you with these thoughts until the printed word brings us together again.

The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government
from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them."
-- Thomas Jefferson

“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting
the government take care of him had better take
a much closer look at the American Indian.”
--Henry Ford

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
--Matthew 10: 29-31 (KJV)