March 16, 2016 The Reflector C

Lifestyles Senior Living

www.40et8bingo.comVisit our website!

Thurs. 6:30 pm • Fri. 10:15 am & 6:30 pmSat. & Sun. 11:00 am, 2:00 pm, 6:30 pm

Full Service Snack Bar •  Pull Tabs • Daily Specials

360-574-84617607 NE 26th Avenue in Hazel Dell

(Off 78th Street) 40et8bingo

CH55

5579

AS

• Adult Family Homes • Assisted Living• Alzheimer Facilities

FREE SENIOR LIVINGINFORMATION & REFERRALS

24 Years of Extraordinary Services!Certified Senior Care Advisors

360-254-6111www.adultcarepro.com

We Help You Find the BestSenior Care Housing Options!

CH55

5507

AS

• Independent Living• VA Benefits Information• Financial Information

• Nursing Homes• Respite Care• In-Home Care

Retired PHS teacher invests time, money into unique hobbyJOANNA MICHAUDstaff reporter

VaNcOUVEr – When a 17-year-old hector Per-azo first traveled to the U.S. as a foreign exchange student from his home in Argentina in 1967, his one main area of interest was soccer. That quickly changed when his American host mother gave him a Rolling Stones album.

“When I listened to the Stones, I really got into their music,” Perazo said. “In those days, if you went to the high school dances, we didn’t have a DJ or anything, we had musical groups. I used to judge the groups based on if they could play the Stones and how well.”

It was his newfound love of music in the U.S. that first prompted the teenage Perazo to get into collect-ing 8-track tapes. The 66-year-old retired Prairie High School Spanish teacher fondly recalls the very first 8-track tape that he and his American brother first had – The Beatles White Album.

“I always remember his (my American brother) first comment when we first listened to the 8-tracks,” Pera-zo said. “He said, ‘they never break, they last forever.’”

Perazo officially started his hobby of collecting 8-tracks in 1967. To date, he said he now probably has about 60,000 8-tracks in his collection. He also collects something even more rare than the typi-cal 8-tracks called 4-tracks, which he said he has roughly 10,000 to 15,000 of. Of all of those, Per-azo said many of them are still sealed.

“Those are my favorite,” Perazo said of the 4-tracks. “I think they have better sound and there are a lot of good artists from the 60s like The Beatles, The Doors, etc. The 4-tracks require a special player and it took me a long time to find one because I had never seen one before, I didn’t even know what it looked like.”

Perazo said he tends to listen to a lot of “obscure” groups from the 60s, including a group that used to open for the Roll-ing Stones. He enjoys finding 8-tracks, and sometimes even 4-tracks, of those different obscure groups.

Aside from music, Perazo also has several 8-tracks with some unique recordings on them, including the 1969 moon landing and one simply called “How to Survive in Your Car in Emergency Conditions.”

“A lot of them are irreplace-

able,” Perazo said. “The moon landing, ones like that, I have those in a special stash of unusual tapes.”

Another huge aspect of Perazo’s hobby of collecting 8-tracks and 4-tracks is that he needed to learn how to repair them.

“For anybody who is considering getting into (col-lecting them), you kind of need to know how to repair them,” he said. “If you don’t know how to repair them, you might as well forget about it. When I first got into it, I realized quickly I needed to learn how to fix them so I could have them for life.”

Perazo said he often buys random 8-tracks simply for the parts when he needs to fix ones in his collection. He said the early ones have a special wheel in them that often becomes damaged and needs to be replaced, so he ends up buying a lot of tapes just for the wheel. When he purchases new tapes to add to his collection,

Perazo said he oftentimes takes them apart to make sure everything is working, not wanting them to break inside the 8-track player.

When he needs to purchase some more 8-track tapes, Perazo said he typically finds them at some places in Portland and sometimes on eBay and other places online.

In addition to his own hobby, Perazo has fixed numerous 8-track tapes for different people over the years. He recalled one time when he helped to repair a tape that a grandfather had recorded of himself play-ing a banjo and singing to his granddaughter as she was growing up. The grandfather wanted to play the tape for his granddaughter at her wedding, but it was broken. However, Perazo fixed it and it was played at the wedding.

Perazo said he also has three or four “folding” 8-tracks, which are quite rare and only contain one or two programs.

Part of the reason Perazo’s collection of 8-tracks and 4-tracks has grown so large is because sometimes private sellers will have a large quantity of tapes for

Love of music leads to

8-track collection

VANCOUVER RESIDENT Hector Perazo owns a 4-track tape of music by the Kinks.

Photo by Mike Schultz

THIS PORTABLE 8-track player is just one of several different 8-track tape players that Vancouver resident Hector Perazo has collected over the years. The two 8-track tapes shown here are folding 8-tracks, which are quite rare.

Photo by Mike Schultz

Photo by Mike Schultz

RETIRED PRAIRIE HIGH School teacher Hector Perazo is shown here among his stash of roughly 60,000 8-track tapes and some 10,000 to 15,000 4-track tapes. Perazo has been collecting tapes since 1967.

HECTOR PERAZO has a number of 8-track players at his Vancouver home that he uses to play selections from his stash of 8-track tapes. Shown here is a 4-track player, an 8-track player, a cassette player and a turntable at Perazo’s home.

Photo by Mike Schultz

See 8-TRACk on Page C6