It’s a balmy May morning and the streets of downtown Springfield are quiet save for a stretch of Adams Street near the Old State Capitol. For more than a block, the sounds of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin” can be heard blaring from speakers perched against the screen windows on the second floor of Springfield Furniture and Recycled Records.
“When I turned 70 last November, I decided I wanted to relax a bit,” Mark says as he leans his elbows against a glass counter filled with old cassette tapes. In his plaid shirt, jeans, and thick-framed glasses he fits right in with his clientele. “I just want to be able to take a three-week vacation with my wife and not have to worry about being in charge of everything.”
“I think the smartest thing we did was we kept buying vinyl from people in the 80s and 90s when everyone was dumping it,” says Mark. “It could have been a huge mistake, but eventually it paid off. We didn’t know we were right until about five years ago.”
But now the Kesslers are ready to flip over to the B sides of their lives and divest themselves of the family business—preferably selling to an entrepreneur who wants to keep the store more or less intact.
