volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

he can pop out the old tape and (a) flip it over, or (b) replace
it entirely. If he chooses (a) the process is fairly simple and
straightforward. However, sometimes before he can listen again
he must rewind to the beginning. This can be frustrating and
takes time and time is money, especially if his batteries are low,
and they usually are. After all, batteries are expensive (why do
they cost so much, anyway?), so every ounce of juice they have
ought to be squeezed from them before they change career paths
and become landfill. Perhaps it is a Northwest thing, but Roy
always has a twinge of guilt whenever he releases the heavy
little tubes, drops them into the trash. He’s not sure why, but he
believes somehow their transformation into landfill is connected
to the ever-expanding hole in our precious Ozone Layer.
Or he could choose (b).
As mentioned, (b) entails replacing the music tape entirely.
Although this might seem fairly straightforward, it rarely is.
And one of the reasons is that Roy always has difficulty deciding
which tape to listen to next. And the reason he always has
this difficulty is that he has heard every single one of his tapes
innumerable times, so it’s hard for him to decide which one he
wants to re-listen to again. And because of this fact—the fact
of his having heard his tapes so many times before—they are
seldom listened to all the way through and therefore require
either rewinding or fast-forwarding once they are inserted into
the Sony player.
This is why there is so much complexity involved in what, on
the surface—to the gruff, nettled passersby—should be a simple
undertaking.
In fact, it is his need for new music that has drawn him to the
Wailing Wall this very day. This very chilly, drizzly, purplish
November day.
Roy, wearing gray, fingerless woolen gloves, succeeds in reinserting
a tape and re-securing the Sony’s broken door. By
holding the tape up to the concrete sky, and squinting through
the little clear plastic window, he had been able to determine—to
his delight—that it was not in need of rewinding. He presses
PLAY and clips the Sony back where it belongs on his belt just
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY