
I was in one of my favorite stores, one of those retail chains that carry merchandise geared towards today’s cool and disenfranchised youth, when I saw a Ramones' Rocket to Russia t-shirt on the wall. I stood there, sighed, and said to myself, “Now THAT was a great album!” Just seeing it got me reminiscing about my New York City punk rock adolescence, and I asked a store employee if they carried the CD. The multiply-pierced, fuchsia-haired sales girl laughed, and said, "The Ramones? We've been sold out for weeks! They come in and go out the same day.” Perplexed, I went on to ask if she thought the record store might have it in stock (See? I gave my age away right there! "Like, what’s a 'record' lady?"). She looked confused (or maybe it was just the way the chain that went from her nose to her ear was pulling her cheek), and finally replied, “I don’t know, but you might try the music store three doors down, you might luck out.”
So off I go, determined to get the damn CD and continue my trip down memory lane. I swept the store's rows and rows of digital media with my eyes, and headed toward the Pop/Rock section. I thumbed through the R's. Nothing. I asked the frighteningly young sales clerk with, yes, a lip piercing, where I might find the Ramones, and he said "Oh no, you wouldn't find them in the pop/rock section, we have a new "Punk/Ska" section!" (New?) He brings me over to the area in question, and my eyes fall on the cover of the Sex Pistol’s Never Mind the Bullocks. I reminisce out loud that this was the record I bought with my first paycheck from Woolworth's when I was 14. He got this glazed look in his eyes and said, "You have this on vinyl??? This is a CLASSIC!" Then he picked up a copy of Rocket to Russia as if it were the Holy Grail and said, "Do you know they are coming out with a tribute album to the Ramones?" Since I was not really interested in the lead singer from ColdPlay singing "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" I tuned him out and said, "Oh, great."
I was feeling rather old as I brought the over-priced "retro" CD to the check out and placed it on the counter. I grabbed some headphones from a nearby rack and asked the other incredibly young man behind the register if they had any sturdier ones for my 9-year old. At this he glanced down at my CD purchase and asked incredulously, "Your nine year old is into the Ramones??" and I say, "Oh no, that's for me, I was talking about the headphones." "You're into the Ramones? Cool!" He seemed so impressed I went on to say, "Yeah, I saw them three or four times in the late 70's." At this point his jaw hit his chest and he gasped, "You SAW THE RAMONES LIVE???" Enjoying this I added, "Yeah, in Central Park for $7.50" He didn't even have words for that, he just sputtered "Central Park???" and I went on to list who I had seen live that year, Blondie, Elvis Costello...I thought he was going to have a seizure, and he looked at me with glazed eyes as if I was a celebrity.

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