Juke Box Lens: McMorial Day through July 31st at Midnight

The record set at the McMorial Day affair lasted for almost 6 weeks until the nation celebrated its 205th birthday and the 340 Club celebrated 7 years – albeit interrupted – on West King Street. On Friday, July 3rd, we had a major party that found the juke’s coffers overflowing with $20.17 (12:06). This record stood for just over a week; the next one - set July 11th - stands to this day. After the Friday night blowout (NOTE: to get to 12 hours it had to be non-stop music … remember it was a Friday, I worked till 5… the juke box had to either begin to rock at 4 and continue non-stop till 4 or begin earlier; no matter how you sliced it this was a bonafide 340) it is understandable if we were somewhat calm on Independence Day … perhaps we slept till Sunday or spent the holiday with our families. Or simply gave the juke a rest.

After such rest, the gang and the juke woke up on July 11th full of vim & vigor. It was a big big day. For July 11, 1981 was F.A.D.! Just as most baseball teams reward their fans with a special day at the end of the season, Phil & I thought that having a Fan Appreciation Day would be a good idea. Phil and I took $35.52 ($72 in 2008 dollars) from the juke box revenues and bought a ½ keg of Pabst, some potato chips and I forget and invited the usual gang of idiots to a 340 where they managed somehow, I truly can’t fathom, to jam $20.40 into the juke box. Since this is the last such record ever sent; permit me to provide some perspective. Humans sleep eight hours a day leaving 16 hours each day to fill with writing a novel, reading the newspaper, saving the world or playing juke box music. Well, on F.A.D. the mighty 340 Club juke box was playing rock ‘n roll for 12 hours and 15 minutes or 77% of those 16 waking hours. I guess that explains why none of us saved the world that day.

To summarize, in the 121 days between April 3rd (i.e. Opening Day) and August 1st the juke box had taken in $478.22 or $3.95 per day. This meant that, on average, the juke box had played for 2:22 daily. That is 10% of each day. In total, of that 17 week mad period; the mighty 340 Club juke box had played for almost 12 full days! If I could sum up the 340 Club experience in one statistic that just might be the one.

However, while no one saw it coming the clock was literally about to strike midnight for the mighty 340 Club juke box.