Way back in the waning decades of the 20th Century there was a place not too far from where I lived known as the Downingtown Farmer's Market.There was one store at the eastern end of the long, low building that actually sold meat, dairy and vegetable products, but the rest of the place was taken up by an assortment of small businesses, flea markets and yard sales in a building maybe forty feet wide and longer than a football field, end zones included. It was only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and was never quite the same thing from one long weekend to the next.
My sons used to love to go there, some times just to look at all the junk and some times to see what treasures they could pick up for a dollar or two.
On one occasion my youngest son stayed with me rather than wander off. He had a question for me. There was a particular song he'd heard some time ago, and liked very much. He'd been looking for it ever since, but with no luck. He knew the name of the song, but didn't know what band had put it out. Did I think it might be possible to find it?
I replied that there was a good place to look nearby, one of the few permanent small businesses in the Market. It was called Beggar's Banquet, and it bought and sold records and cassettes. (CDs were as yet undreamed-of in those dark ages. Indeed, the Internet was still a legendary thing, much like a unicorn.)
We went into the Beggar's Banquet, and I asked one of the salespeople if they had 'We Built This City' by Jefferson Starship. They indeed had it, on one remaining copy of the cassette of the album that the song was from. The clerk retrieved it from the back room and handed it to my son so he could see that that song was there.
I watched my son as he held the cassette in his hands and read the title of the song he had been looking for for so long. As I did, I realized that I was going to have to buy that cassette. In some sense, I had already bought it. There was no way I could not just show my son his Holy Grail, but let him hold it in his hands, and then have us both walk away from it. It seemed as if my son was wondering if he could ask me to buy it for him, but was hesitating. So I asked the clerk how much it cost and paid for it.
It was a long time ago. The Market has long since been torn down to make room for a big strip mall, and I don't know if my son still has that cassette. But I will have that memory forever.