Merry Christmas From Les

Our teacher, Mrs. Keller announced that she was going to borrow a recording machine and that we could all make our own recordings. All we had to do was purchase a blank record from Leavitt’s hardware for $1.00 before next week.

I was in second grade and it was just before Christmas in 1950. A dollar was a lot of money for our family but I was so excited to be able to record my own voice. Somehow Mom found the money to give me.

We were instructed to prepare something that we wanted to record. One song that we had been singing in class was “Frosty the Snowman.” I really liked that one and I thought that I could sing it pretty well. And, I knew all the words. I knew that I wanted a group of my friends to sing on the record with me. I selected Jim Christiansen, Lynn Barnes and Jim Bill Garrett. I think we practiced singing God Bless America together and thought that was all we had time for on the record.

The recording player was set up in the corner of the room. It was a big, expensive piece of equipment and Mrs. Keller could only use it for two days. The class was given work to do then Mrs. Keller would call students over, one by one, to make their recording.

Finally, it was my turn. I was very nervous to be singing when the whole class could hear me, but I went forward singing in my Nephi twang. Some people said that I put an extra “thump” in the thumpity thump thump, but I liked it. Once the machine started recording it couldn’t be stopped until the entire blank record was used. It had an arm and a needle like a regular record player, but this needle actually cut grooves into the blank, vinyl record. I began, “This is Lester Broadhead and I’m going to sing Frosty the Snowman.” Then I sang the song all the way through, gulping from nervousness once and starting a line with the wrong word once. When I was through there was still a little bit of space so Mrs. Keller told me to say something else, so I said, “Goodbye.”

Then I got my group together and we recorded the other side. After singing “God Bless America,” there was still more time left on the record, so Mrs. Keller motioned us to keep going. I think I asked what should we sing now and somebody said, “My Country Tis of Thee.” After singing that the recorder was still going so we kept making comments and finally ended with, “Well, goodbye!” in unison.

Our “harmony” was very dissonant and seldom on key. When my Mom listened to it she asked me which boy was sing so low. I told her it was Lynn Barnes because he was sitting on the floor.

I still have that little record, recorded at 78 rpm’s. It is very scratchy and it is hard to find a record player that will play 78 rpm- actually hard to find a record player at all! I’m grateful for modern technology so that I now have it recorded on a CD and the scratchiness is minimized.

What a fond memory Mrs. Keller, my second grade teacher created for me and my classmates that Christmas of 1950. Now I can pass this memory on to my children and grandchildren.