My grandmother was born in 1895, and we used to talk about all the amazing changes that had occurred during her life.

There is no way my own life -- even if I do live to be 94 -- will have the same level of changes hers did. When she was born, most Americans lived on farms without electricity or indoor plumbing. They used horses and buggies for short trips and coal-powered trains for long trips. No one yet flew, and there was no penicillin for infections. There were no motion pictures, television or even radio.

What didn't we have when I was born in 1949? I don't need to go into most of them, but I will mention one thing.

[caption id="attachment_1847" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="iTunes"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/itunes-logo.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1847" title="itunes-logo" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/itunes-logo-300x300.png" alt="" width="300" height="300" /></a>[/caption]

We didn't have iTunes.

That might not sound like a big deal, but there are several ways in which it is just <em>huge</em> for people who love music. In the late 1970s, when the size of my record collection peaked, I had about 600 record albums. If you figure an average of about 11 songs per album, that means I had about 6,600 songs.

As I started moving around the country in the '80s, my collection got smaller and music became something to be listened to on the radio.

I had switched first to cassettes and later to CDs, but they took up space too. A few years back, I noticed that my daughter and my son had both started saving their music on their computer hard drives.

<!--more-->I was reluctant at first, just as I was reluctant to get rid of books I really liked and store them on my Nook.

But about 2 1/2 years ago, I transferred almost all my CDs onto my computer hard drive and got rid of the CDs themselves. Even though I've always been a PC guy, I found that Apple's iTunes was far and away the best way to store my music.

I also discovered the iTunes store, and I have the most amazingly eclectic collection of music you could imagine. Except for hip hop, which isn't really aimed at retired white guys, I've got everything from ABBA to (Warren) Zevon. I've got albums in French (dozens of them), Spanish, Portugese, Italian and German. I've got Sousa marches, Broadway shows and movie soundtracks, dozens of comedy albums and about a hundred audiobooks.

[caption id="attachment_1849" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Dennis Day"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Dennis_Day_1960.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1849" title="Dennis_Day_1960" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Dennis_Day_1960.jpg" alt="" width="220" height="292" /></a>[/caption]

One thing that has been fun for me is finding albums that have to be out of print that my parents owned and played when I was a little kid -- Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Harry Lauder, Maurice Chevalier. With Christmas just around the corner, I found myself looking on iTunes for an album my mother always loved. Dennis Day was an Irish tenor who sang for 35 years on the Jack Benny Show. In 1957, he came out with an album called "Christmas is for the Family."

Every year for the rest of my childhood, we listened to that album. Tonight I found it, purchased it and downloaded it. It had a partental guidance label on it unlike any I have ever seen. I download comedy albums that say "EXPLICIT." This wonderful old album, first recorded and sold 55 years ago, says "CLEAN."

Isn't that wonderful?

There are plenty of Christmas songs I love, from Alabama's "Christmas in Dixie" to Jim Croce's "It Doesn't Have to be This Way" to plenty of the old traditional ones. My true favorite is "O Holy Night," which actually is also on the Dennis Day album.

But it is so wonderful to be able to hear a song that meant so much to my family for so long.

Thanks, iTunes.

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