Tiny Tunes to Timbuktu
Tiny Tunes to Timbuktu
Lessons from listening to our old friend the boom box
Whoever designed the boom box must’ve been thinking along the right lines. “Hey, man. You know what’d be totally groovy? A handle! KC and the Sunshine Band can sit right…here…on…my…shoulder, so we can boogie all…the…time!! You dig it? A plug?! Come on, man. Get real! We need some Ds, dude. 7-11’s got Ds if you lose your juice down the street. Put an 8 pack right here in back and it’d be like ‘Yeah, baby! Now I can hear it! Far Out, man!’ Now gimme some skin.”
Several decades later, one can still find a few of these dinosaurs lying around, most of them complete with D cell battery compartments. Yeah, I know. Lots of people now have graduated to wireless ear buds, portable bluetooth speakers, and tiny little gizmos with entire music libraries on them. But I can hear ‘em again all the way back in the day if they could somehow see what was coming in the way of shrinking technology…
“Dude, put those lame ass things down! How ‘bout some amps?!? Go grab that old bad boy from Dad’s garage, turn it up and feel that bass! That’s what I’m talkin’ about, man. Yeahhhhhhh….now we’re cruisin! Ready…to…roll with our big fattie Ds!”
But unlike the big city you may have seen in the ‘70s, things out here in the sticks are a bit different. Small mountain towns and boom boxes just don’t mix. You see, up here in the hills there’s barely has any street corners. Say what? That’s right. There just aren’t many of those street corners lying around with traffic lights, sidewalks, and big garbage cans where one could set their stuff down for a minute and take a break. You know, with traffic lights that turn red so that you can stop moving for a minute? No, not here.
Traffic lights is one thing the Town of Truckee is short on. And while most of us love Truckee for putting in all it’s traffic calming roundabouts instead of traffic lights, one big drawback is that there’s fewer opportunities for someone on two feet to take a much needed rest at the street corners chillin to their favorite tunes.
No, not here. Fun would never hurt so badly taking your squawk box for a walk across town. You’d be ready to ditch the box as you trudged up to the donation box at the local thrift shop. Adios, my friend! Thank you for a hell of a day…I think. You were fun most of the time but some of your tunes were just too heavy. Ha ha.
Now when I see people traveling around with one of those little bluetooth speakers clipped to their backpacks, I just gotta laugh a little inside. It takes me back to when we’d see all the antiquated things that make up the yesteryear. And, yeah, I get it. Music adds magic and keeps us all going. There’s nothing better than your favorite playlist at the right place and the right time.
I still love traveling with tunes. But as a minimalist ultralight backpacker, the thing that makes the most sense to me is listening to music on my phone with a lightweight pair of earbuds. I know this is shocking news, but I leave my boom box at home. The words “boom box” and “ultralight minimalism” just don’t belong anywhere near each other.
I’ve also grown out of broadcasting my music out to the rest of the world. After all, my favorite tunes aren’t yours and loud music often rudely steps on the toes of innocent bystanders. Especially during serene moments, like strolling through quiet pine forests, granite boulder fields, or scrambling up to the top of a peak. Or even when strolling the back alleys of a major city. It’s only right to let others enjoy the corners of the world in their own peaceful ways.
Such is the case for world backpacking too. Earbuds are far less intrusive than bluetooth speakers and let you see all kinds of wonderful places unobtrusively, like that gorgeous quiet little lake with people like me sitting very still out on its open shores contemplating our collective existences, without anyone strolling up with a 20 pound boombox on their shoulder to disturb the peace with their waves.
There are a million types of earbuds on the market, wireless, wired, and ones that can probably do your dishes too, so I don’t have any specific recommendations for you. Obviously, the perfect pair for the ultralight minimalist would be ones that are light and compact, inexpensive, aren’t attractive to opportunistic thieves, and are comfortable in your own set of ears. My advice would be to just pick ones that make you feel groovy as you groove to your own grooves, privately.
Do yourself a solid: save some space, weight, and bulk, not to mention some peace and quiet, and leave your boom box at home in your garage. Give yourself something to laugh about later as a monument to a groovy time and place gone by when we went to great lengths to listen to our favorites. Leave your new bluetooth speakers behind too. Bring some earbuds instead. That’ll save you at least one trip to the nearest thrift and gift to donate away all the heavy things you took on your trip that you wish you hadn’t taken in the first place.
