Jukebox Hero

When I think about Christmas presents, I think about stockings and Cabbage Patch Dolls and race track cars and bibles and bicycles. But one gift that really sticks out in my mind is the jukebox from Christmas 1979...and it might have been 1980.

It was such a great gift that rather than sitting in my bedroom, the whole family enjoyed its radiance. Parked between the kitchen and dining room in our house in Gainesville, and I parked in front of it, staring at it work it's magic and drifting off places the beat would take me. The lower half of the jukebox was hard plastic, with disco lights behind it. Those lights were mesmerizing, and we'd turn out all the lights in the house just to watch them flicker to the beat of The Oak Ridge Boys "Elvira" or John Denver's "Country Boy." It's record player thrilled us with Alvin and Chipmunks albums and with the 8-track, we played Kermit strumming his banjo and wailing "Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me." Over, and over, and over again.