The Family Audio Archive

I was seven years old, sitting in the back seat behind Dad while he drove. Aunt Sonia sat beside me behind Mom, who was in the passenger seat. I had my new cassette recorder running because I loved recording my family. Soon everyone was singing, laughing, and joining in. After Mom and Aunt Sonia finished a song, they would tell me, “Okay, play it back,” so they could hear themselves.

Years later, Mom told me something about that night that I never forgot. She said the family started singing because of me. I was so happy to be included, so excited about my new recorder, and so full of joy that everyone around me started having fun too. She told me my happiness was infectious and that I made the adults feel young again. The recorder wasn't just capturing the moment — in a way, little Ricky was helping create it.

We were headed north from Dallas to one of our favorite places, the Duck-In in Lake Dallas. Dad and I always turned dinner into a catfish contest. That night I ate seven pieces and Dad ate nine. I still insist I could have beaten him if I had not filled up first on the homemade salad with that wonderful chunky blue-cheese dressing and the homemade hushpuppies I kept dipping into it. Mom finally figured out that the dressing was the reason a boy who normally wanted nothing to do with salad suddenly could not stop eating it, and she laughed.

I promised Dad I would skip the salad the next time so I could beat him. I failed completely. I loved the dressing too much and ate too much salad again.

I remember the restaurant itself just as clearly: the salad bar, the restrooms, the lemon-scented wet naps after dinner, the big blue swordfish hanging by the bar entrance, the shape of the roof, and the illuminated Duck-In sign. The building had once been a home before becoming a restaurant and later being expanded. After dinner we would sometimes stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream.

The Duck-In stayed special to me for years. When I graduated from high school and Mom asked where I wanted to eat for my special graduation dinner, I answered immediately: the Duck-In. Of course, everyone already knew I would.

Listening to these tapes now, more than half a century later, I can still hear the joy Mom was talking about. I wasn't standing outside the family recording them — I was right in the middle of it, delighted to belong, and somehow my excitement helped bring everyone together.

These recordings preserve my mother's father, Grandpa Dave Kestecher, singing the old songs he loved, surrounded by family. I was there with my recorder, capturing the voices and moments that otherwise might have disappeared. More than half a century later, they let me hear my family together again.

On one of the recordings, I was sitting on Grandpa Dave's lap so I could be close to him while he sang. He had a pacemaker, and I accidentally bumped his chest. You can hear him say that he had been hit there several times that day. I was concerned and asked him what had happened. That little exchange stayed with me, because it captures exactly who I was — a boy who wanted to be right in the middle of the family, close enough to love them, hear them, and preserve them.