When I was a little kid, Walkmans were cool. They were cool because teenagers had them – passing music around their huddles at lunch hour while they smoked cigarettes.
Scared to death, I once gathered the courage to ask one of those teens for a listen. He grinned and put the foam headphones onto my ears and I heard Iron Maiden for the first time at top volume.
I would eventually own my own Walkman, listening to music as my friend Mike and I rode our skateboards in the driveway.