Buying a portable 8-track player in Phoenix in 1977

Time-travel with me back to October 16th, 1977, the day that this ad was printed, and let's go buy a portable 8-track player. This will have to be an imaginary journey, although I had moved to Phoenix in August of '77, when I was 19 I didn't have the budget for something so extravagant.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't have bought an eight-track player anyway, and would have probably gone for the AM/FM Stereo Cassette. But I didn't have an extra $99.97 sitting around either, so I guess it's a moot point.

If you've never listened to music on an 8-track player, you're not missing much, it was just awful, and it didn't last very long. I had a Bee Gees album that I got for Christmas, and in between each track the music just faded away, there was a hesitation, and then it resumed. I don't remember how I played it, my parents must have had an 8-track player. It was a clumsy system.

This ad, as you can see, was from the "Arizona" supplement to the Republic. Since I live in Glendale now, I can't help but notice that my town doesn't seem to be mentioned in the ad, just Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Peoria, and Tempe. I wonder if Glendale didn't have a Kmart yet in 1977? By the way, the one in Peoria, which has been gone for many years now, is the one that I used to go to a lot in the '90s, on Grand Avenue. There was also one on Northern by the freeway, but it must have been newer.


Anyway, it's 1977 in our imaginations, and I have $23.88 burning a hole in my pocket, so I'm gonna get the portable 8-track player. Here's the description: A conveniently 'carryable' 8-track tape player for your listening pleasure! Manual channel selector, swivel handle. Earphone jack for listening in privacy. Runs on batteries - not included. Save thu Wed.

Looks like I can use my Visa or Mastercharge, neither of which I had when I was 19. Can I borrow yours?
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. If you like Phoenix history and would like to help support my efforts to preserve and share precious digital historic images, please consider becoming a patron. Thank you!

Become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more