Desperate Man Blues
A story of the mania of the king of 78RPM record collectors, Joe Bussard, subject of a documentary film of the same name.

Twenty miles later and deeper into the mountains, Bussard pulled up to the old man's house, and from the first glance he knew he'd hit pay dirt. It was a little shotgun shack, no paint on the faded wood, junk scattered all over the yard, with a broken-toothed fence that remained standing through sheer stubbornness. A little ramshackle, but not too. Lived in. Perfect. He could almost smell the old records waiting for him inside.

In his years of canvassing for 78s, Bussard had learned the myriad signs‹old lace curtains, flowerpots on the porch, smoke snaking from the chimney‹that meant a home's current residents had been there for decades. These were the people who had long ago bought the records that Bussard was now after. And they would still have them, because mountain folks never throw anything away, whether it be a broken refrigerator, a tin coffee can, or old Victrola records they haven't played in years.