I bought a new truck.

It’s not exactly new, but it’s new to me.

My last truck was a ’72 Chevrolet. It had vinyl seats, a rubber floor, hand-crank windows and a radio. Oh, it also had air conditioning, but I took the belt off of it because running the air dropped the mileage from 8 mpg to 7 mpg. I sold it because I wanted something that would pass a gas station.

Boy, what a jump in technology. My new 4X4 Ford F150 has four doors, a really awesome AC, lots of storage, a bedliner…

And no CD player.

I guess CD players are now optional. This one has a plug where you can hook up your cell phone to talk through the speakers and charge your phone at the same time, but NO CD player.

Since 2005, CD sales have plummeted. Vinyl, 8-tracks and cassettes died a long time ago. Truthfully, vinyl is enjoying a nostalgic resurgence, but it’s only a matter of time before that wanes.

Where I’m going with all of this is that the lifespan of the formats by which we have listened to music has gotten shorter with each new means of music delivery.

Thomas Edison gets most of the credit for the launch of vinyl. And you gotta give it to old Tom, vinyl’s been around the longest – over 100 years.

I recall carrying an 8-track case in the back of my ’66 Mustang in high school. I’d carefully choose what would go in it so that I had just the right ones when we hung out in the Pizza Hut parking lot. 8-tracks enjoyed a life of about 25 years.

Cassettes came later and were much smaller and more convenient, but they only made it about 15 years.

The late ‘80’s and early 90’s saw the explosion of the CD, but almost 10 years ago, iPods, computers and other devices began to replace the need for any sort of disc or tape.

And I miss that. Fishing out my favorite album and cruising.

Before long, we’ll be able to mentally send our favorite album from our brain into the sound system of our vehicle. Where’s the fun in that?

For those of us who were lucky enough to spend the wee hours of the morning waiting for “More Than A Feeling” to cycle back around on the 8-track, we’ll always have the Pizza Hut.

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