Transcriber: Erin BQ Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
I'd like to tell you a story.
It's about my grandmother, and her obsession.
(Violin music)
She wanted a record player, and not just any record player.
It was the 1950s
and high-fidelity was the latest and greatest,
and she wanted a Magnavox stereo console record player,
but she knew my grandfather would say no.
How could he not?
It was too expensive.
They didn't have money for such things,
much less for the records it would take to fuel for it.
But she wasn't one to give up on dreams so easily,
so she hatched a plan.
Back in those days,
grocery stores had incentive programs
for buying a week's worth of food from one place;
for instance,
a set of encyclopedias could be obtained one volume a week,
for 26 weeks.
Did I mention that she was a patient person?
(Laughter)
One day she went to her husband and said, "It's time to get that Magnavox."
Of course the answer was no before the sentence was finished,
but she wasn't finished.
So she let him go on and on,
all the while quietly leading him to the hall closet,
where she pushed aside all the winter coats
and pointed to a box on the floor -
inside it, an entire collection of classical records
that she had secretly obtained,
one album a week, for months and months.
She had done her part,
and grandpa found a way to get her that brand-new, high-fidelity
stereophonic Magnavox console record player.
(Laughter)
From that point forward,
there was always music in the O'Reilly household.
Uncle Al played bass, washtub and upright.
Uncle Denny belonged to the, ahem,
"The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement
of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America."
(Laughter)
And Uncle John Paul played piano at a honky-tonk bar every Saturday night,
right up until the day he died.
And as with any Irish family -
the next generation blossomed with three siblings and 22 first cousins -
tone-deaf just isn't really a thing.
My cousin Mike plays fiddle in a Celtic band.
My cousin Mary sang her way through college on a tip jar.
Desmond built his own recording studio,
and Jack crafts guitars by hand, just for the love of it.
And that love exists in my immediate family as well.
In 1972, in a bar called Castaways, in Newport News, Virginia,
my father, who loves folk music, fell in love with a folk singer.
Today, they have four children:
a soprano, an alto, a tenor and a bass.
And Christmas caroling with my family
is my all-time favorite thing to do in the entire world.
I love it so much, the only thing more fun is to put my parents on the spot,
which I'm about to do right now,
because they're in row F, and they look like me,
and they love surprise company,
and you're all invited to Christmas carol with us.
(Laughter) (Cheering)
You're welcome.
(Applause)
It is amazing to think
that this entire legacy of music in the O'Reilly family
started with my grandmother and a record player.
A collection of music and a collection of kids,
who had kids, who have kids.
Singers, songwriters, producers, instrumentalists -
so much music,
so far beyond where it all began.
But that's what grandparents do, right?
They see a future and they steer us toward it.
And for my grandmother, it was all sight.
You see, she never in her life
heard a single note from that record player,
or from any of us,
because she was born deaf.
But she saw the power of music on the faces of people around her,
and she knew that we must have it.
And because of her, we get to sing every day.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheering)