It started out innocently enough… Beach Boys 8-track tapes and 45s from Ben Franklins, but it wasn’t long before I wanted to concentrate on the great format of 331/3 rpm records.   Ben Franklins had it’s charms, but not the focus of a real, independent record store.   My Freshman year of High School was all the horrors of the movies and TV shows we’ve seen for years and it became obvious the lunch room was no place for me.   So, if I wasn’t hiding in the library I was roaming outside the school grounds during my lunchtime.  It was on one of these  walks I discovered Val’s Halla on South Blvd.  One great thing about starting high school at OPRF was since I lived by Concordia College in RF,  I was given money to ride the bus and buy lunch.   Tho I’d never stepped on a school bus, my instincts told me it’d be every bit as bad as the lunchroom.   Of course, as I started bringing home records weekly – at Val’s I could get a used LP for $2.14 tax included – my folks figured out I was neither buying lunch or riding the bus.  After they argued whether I should still be given any money, my Dad thought I shouldn’t but my Mom stated that I was learning the value of money by sacrificing something to gain something of more importance to me, it was decided their youngest could develop much worst habits and I was allowed my vinyl stipend.   There after I spent two to five lunch breaks a week in Val’s Halla for four years running.  I bought my first  Bob Dylan LP there, my first copy of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, my first copies of The Beatles Revolver and The White Album (yes, I now own many copies of both) and so many more.