Happy VD!

                      Happy Veteran's Day! Or Memorial Day as the calendars would label it. A big thanks to all who serve and have served our country. I had no chance to catch any parades this year, kind of like to see the drum and bugle corps in action. Inspiring, another example of music motivating. Powerful, driving, uplifting.

 I never served, but I had friends that did. Viet Nam. A few perks, but not worth the trauma they came home to. I won't get too political here.

 One of the few good perks was the PX (or BX, depending on what branch of the military you were in). Almost everybody bought audio gear whether they wanted it or not, it was so cheap. Mainly Japanese gear, Pioneer, Kenwood, Akai, Sansui. A friend's brother came home with a monster Pioneer system, table, receiver, four speakers. Cassette hadn't been invented yet, at least as a hifi medium. I was in awe, and spent many hours listening to this.

  The only issue was as it were occasionally models only released in Europe or Asia, repairs could be a problem. I ran into this during my retail days, as I couldn't cross reference some of the models. They had no value in trade, parts were not obtainable. If you were somewhat savvy, you researched this a little before you bought to see if the same models were available domestically. I saw people with huge systems that weren't even into hifi!  Many other products were available at a discount to service people, but Hifi seemed to be amongst the most popular.