Thank you for sharing this. Most of those things I can certainly identify with, especially trying to tape your favorite song from the radio station. It was a matter of getting the whole song, keeping the DJ from speaking over it, and listening for ages until you heard the song again (just in case you didn't get the whole song the first time around). It was a challenge, but while waiting for the one song you want, sometimes you hear other songs that you have to have on the cassette just in case that song never comes back on the radio again.
And making mixture tapes was a challenge, especially if you didn't have the dual cassette player or boom box with the dual cassette player.
Ah...the memories.
