The Bedford Record

Bedford is a small town in western Pennsylvania. My mother grew up there, and several times each year we hop on the turnpike and drive out to visit for the day. A small pastry shop called The Washington Bakery used to make the best maple rolls -- that was always our first stop, until it closed its doors in 2007 after 83 years of business. The rest of the day would consist of lunch at The Landmark and perusing antique shops, hoping to find, among other collectibles, any items bearing my Grandfather’s name from the Sinclair gas station he owned. Over the years I have been lucky enough to find a rain gauge and a matchbook. I happened upon the former in one of the town’s two antique co-op’s. In the basement of that same now-defunct establishment, I came across the above vinyl set to play on a large vintage turntable console. The sleek black grooves and circular patterns, the small separate tears following in suit, and the colors and image -- in tandem, they all worked. Eye to the viewfinder, I zoomed in and experimented with framing the shot. This was the end result.