The Vinyl Solution

For her part, Heather spends between fifteen and twenty hours a week working alongside her family members; she uses this income to supplement the paycheck she receives from the Toys R Us branch at Interstate 225 and Mississippi, where she's toiled for nearly five years. "But as soon as mom can afford to take me on full-time, I'd like to do that," she says. "What I really want to do is become a dance instructor. That way, I could work at Hear Here during the day and teach dancing at night. Then I could be around music all day long."

No, Carolyn, Tamara and Heather aren't sick of music, even though they spend most of their time immersed in it. Their conversations brim with references to musical arcana, and their idea of a good time is to contribute to a list of "funny song titles" that they give to preferred customers: Their roster includes Wayne Kemp's "Your Wife Is Cheating on Us Again" and the Bobby Peterson Quintet standard "Mama Get Your Hammer (There's a Fly on Baby's Head)." And while they sometimes play the radio while they're helping people choose among more 45s than they knew existed or readying packages to be sent to vinyl enthusiasts all over the continent, you're just as apt to find them at the office turntable spinning the black circle.

"I'd hate to see 45s go away," Carolyn says. "I like the way they sound--and when you only want to hear one song by somebody, there's nothing better. People in the music industry keep coming up with different formats, but they haven't topped 45s yet. They're perfect.