Man this sent me on an innerwebs rabbit hole adventure…
When I was a kid (about 9 to HS) I lived in St. Pete, Florida.
My brother knew this guy — Tom Shuren — who was a record collector. Tom had something like 200,000 records, a nearly complete collection of Edison wax AND shellac cylinders going back to whenever those things were in vogue and he rebuilt/refinished old Victrolas and Edison music roll players.
I’m pretty sure — in hindsight — he was on the ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder), a loner, very few friends, work, home, collect, work on projects and he had the most amazing memory for details. He could find any record in his collection within seconds, tell you every detail of the disc, players, production, etc. Rob Bamberger had nothing on this guy for music trivia.
He and my older brother were ham radio operators and I’d tag along occasionally on weekends and listen to golden oldies like “Roll me over in the clover, roll me over lay me down and do it again,” or “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition and we’ll all stay free.” Most of his stuff was teens and twenties-era. Back then it must’ve been easy to find that stuff at estate sales from WW1 veterans retiring and dying in Florida would have him coming home with orange crates FULL of records - he had them stacked in several rooms in his 1200 SF house. Tom was a nuclear power plant/boiler designer/draftsman for Babcox and Wilcox by day and had the most interesting Christmas light display around. I mention all this in the hopes there might be someone who knew or knows of what I’m going on about.
He used OLD vacuum tubes to make his displays — and this was in the 1970s, so OLD meant 50+ years most of them — with ferris wheels, a train, creche/manger scene and more all lit with filaments from obsolete/extra tubes he had kicking around. From a distance, say, 20 feet or so, everything looked just amazing even magical with the soft orange-red glow but up close, in the daylight, it looked about like you’d expect: old erector set pieces cobbled together with bailing wire, bicycle wheels, coat hangers and zip cord and the magic gone with the sunrise.
The displays took up his entire front yard, porch and roof line. This was just east of 9th street on 38th (36th?) Ave. south. The St. Pete times/Evening Independent ran a piece on him nearly every year, he was featured on local news and I’ll be darned if I can find a SINGLE online reference to any of this, or him.
Just memories. Last time I recall seeing him or his displays was sometime around the time I went in the service in ‘76, maybe earlier. Some local thugs tore up his display a year or so earlier throwing parts in the street and the palm trees and Tom had changed, gotten more reclusive, IIRC, odder.
Thanks for bringing this to light [ahem].
