The cassette was already in the cassette deck. When I turned the key, “Refugee” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers started piercing the silence with the words:
It don’t make no difference to me, baby,
Everybody’s had to fight to be free,
You see you don’t have to live like a refugee
It was the summer of 1980 and I had just purchased the stereo for my car. It was not just any stereo, it was a Pioneer in-dash AM/FM cassette player. It came with pioneer speakers and I added a 100-watt power booster. The power booster had a plug-in for a microphone so you could sing along which for some reason attracted a lot of passengers so we could all sing like rock stars. I was proud of the new equipment in my car and told all my friends about purchasing it in Kansas City and buying several cassettes to play, along with a cassette case.
The album on the cassette was “Damn the Torpedoes” which almost made it to the top of the charts topping out at number two in 1979. When “Refugee” ended “Here Comes My Girl” started then “Even the Losers” played, which was followed by “Don’t Do Me Like That.”
The Western Word 