Rewind Fast Forward Respool

     Recently while looking for some electronics I had stored away I came upon an old cassette player.  Seems like I bought the player 15 years ago but for what I don't have a clue.  The cassette format has long been relegated to the trash heap of the tech history.  If your at least 40 years of age you probably had  cassette tapes scattered all over the house and  even sliding around in your automobile.  The cassette was the first time any of us experienced music freedom.  But lets be clear!   As a music format for recorded sound, the cassette tape is a terrible piece of technology.  It's nothing more than a roll of tape in a box.  Each time you play a cassette tape it degrades making bad sound worse.  They crackle in the winter and melt in the summer.  They unspool because that's their destiny.  Yes they are portable, affordable  disposable and can be customized but so are folding street maps and you know what happened to folding street maps.
     During the late 70's through the 80's I spent hours upon hours making custom tapes of the music I enjoyed but also spent hours with a pencil stuck the a cassette gears repairing ribbon twist.  Finding a specific song you wanted to hear was almost impossible.  Rewinding or fast forwarding hoping to land at the beginning of a song was an art I never seemed to master.
     Old technology rarely makes a comeback but I'll probably keep the old cassette player.  You never know maybe I'll wake up some day and the year will be 1980.  I'll grab a cassette off the dash, stick a pencil in it's gear, respool and fast forward.