Six days a week, 64-year-old Jim Laughlin walks three blocks from his home on College Street in Murfreesboro to Digital Planet on Lytle Street, where he has worked for the last 17 years. Over time, Laughlin has watched a young Murfreesboro grow to maturity. He’s watched the town he’s called home for more than 40 years grow from a quaint, small town with a population of no more than 50,000 to the bustling city it’s become today.

He’ll tell you all about it, too, but not before he tries to sell you something.

Laughlin was born to be a salesman. He is a magnificent merchant of media. Monday through Saturday he spends his hours, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., in the veritable closet of CDs, DVDs and games that intrinsically compose Digital Planet. Peering through the window from the outside, one can see Laughlin perched on his checkerboard countertop, behind miniature pillars of CDs and DVDs, surveying the shop and its customers. Framed in the window, he looks like the ideal subject for a New Age Norman Rockwell portrait titled “A Day at Digital Planet.”

Stepping into the Lytle Street Digital Planet is like stepping into a sea, except the water is previously owned media and the crisp breeze is replaced by the stale scent of dust blowing off the vinyl by an air conditioner in the rear of the store.

Walls that aren’t completely concealed by merchandise are painted azure. Sea turtles poke their illustrated heads from out behind Blu-rays and old Super Nintendo games. An airbrushed dolphin is caught in mid-leap on the circuit-breaker panel door. The ceiling features an amateur mural of what it must look like to sea creatures staring up from the sea floor—nothing but dark blue and hints of green with a large yellow bubble in the center.

Yet it’s difficult to pay much attention to the ceiling when there is so much around that demands observation. It seems as if one dart of the eye could cause you to overlook the record you’ve spent years looking for. Cardboard boxes stacked on boxes, topped with milk crates and whatever else will remain balanced adorn the landscape that is Laughlin’s second home. There isn’t even enough room for a bathroom, forcing Laughlin to lock up the place and walk across the street when nature calls. But Laughlin doesn’t mind the inconvenience—he’s just happy to be doing what he loves, making money.

There probably wouldn’t be a Digital Planet had it not been for Laughlin. Michael Morrison, the owner of Digital Planet, remembers first meeting Laughlin before the genesis of the business.

“We were neighbors, and he had the homeless people organized to mow lawns. I don’t know if he was paying them or what. He was the only one that was collecting the checks.

“Anyway, I went to give him a check, and he started talking to me about music. I knew he was into it, because I’m pretty sure he was selling records off his back porch on the weekends.”

Morrison laughs, then continues.

“The second or third time we chatted we started talking about Great Escape and Phonoluxe in Nashville. He’d asked me if I had ever been to a used music store, and I told him I hadn’t. So I told him I’d go check it out, and then he asked if he could ride with me because he didn’t have a car.”

Shortly after Morrison’s introduction to the realm of used media, Laughlin proposed an idea. He told Morrison that Murfreesboro was the perfect place to start a business in used media.

“There was nothing around here like that,” Laughlin remembers. “It was an open market.”

“He kept pressing the issue,” Morrison recalls, “until I finally told him, ‘You find a place and we’ll start it up.’”

That was all the headway Laughlin required. He made his first sale at Digital Planet by selling his dream scheme. After that, things began falling into place.

“I found this place on Lytle—rent was $250 a month,” Laughlin says. “Couldn’t beat that back then.”

“The place was a dump, a real fixer-upper,” Morrison says. “I waited a few days just to see if Jim would forget about it. He didn’t. Finally, I told Jim that I would rent it out for a month and see what happened. My wife Jennifer thought I was crazy.”

Now, 17 years later, Laughlin, the original employee of the Lytle Street location, is still there. Laughlin has become the representative of the Digital Planet name, as well as a staple on the square of Murfreesboro.

Laughlin moved here from Georgia 41 years ago.

“I’ve lived in the South most my life,” Laughlin says. “Got family here. My mother was from Tennessee, born and raised. My father was from the North. They met during World War II. A lot of Northern soldiers came down here to marry Southern women,” Laughlin says winking.

“My mom went to Ohio, where I was born. We stayed about a week after that.” He motions for me to come closer to him, as if he’s about to reveal a dark secret. He leans in and whispers. “Prob’ly more like three months. I lived about three months of my life in the North,” he snickers. “Moved back South after that.”

Life for Laughlin before the age of Digital Planet was all about making ends meet.

“I had to make money. Worked as a cook before all this—bet you didn’t know that. MTSU Grille, KFC, Western Sizzlin steakhouse—I worked at all three of them places,” he says.

“There’s no lawns to mow in the winter-time,” he concludes, smiling. All that hard work has paid off for Jim, but he doesn’t let the good fortune tarnish his sales pitch.

Walking into Digital Planet, customers are bombarded by Laughlin’s shtick. He is a bird of prey, perched, one leg propped on his countertop, waiting to spring on customers as they peruse the endless array of merchandise.

“Three dollars off CDs, DVDs and games,” he calls out.

A man stands, sifting through the vinyl section.

“You lookin’ for anything in particular?” Laughlin inquires. “I get 300 records in here a month. Marley, Floyd, Dylan—anything you’re lookin’ for; you find something you like, I got a record player at the front of the store.”

This is Laughlin’s technique, and it’s what has made him the Murfreesboro celebrity he is today. Every customer gets the same treatment, the same spiel. It’s become such a major part of his persona that it seems as if sometimes he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

“I worked at the MTSU Grille,” he begins. “Never went to college a day in my life. You know, I saw Elvis at . . .” his eye catches a customer moving boxes of CDs. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

photos by Daniel Youree Lewis

Off he goes to propose a sale, and when he returns, the conversation that was started has dissolved, and we start anew.

Laughlin’s eccentric method of conversation is what distinguishes him from other salesclerks. He is in a league all his own, and he’ll tell you why.

“I got my face on websites and T-shirts . . . I don’t even own a computer. People know me around here. I’m prob’ly the oldest dude still workin’ in a record store.”

People know Laughlin so well that his seat in the domain of Murfreesboro lore is saved, but something that most people don’t know is that Laughlin is as much a curator of Murfreesboro history as he is a part of it.

Laughlin is a Murfreesboro history aficionado. He knows the downtown area as if he designed it himself. He has, in fact, lived no more than a mile from the square since he moved here. Always interested in history, Laughlin began collecting Murfreesboro relics and memorabilia more than a decade ago.

“I wasn’t into collecting any of the historical stuff until 10 or 11 years ago,” he admits. “Before that it was all CDs and fun and stuff. I guess I wasn’t mature enough. I just wanted a job.”

As our conversation about his love for history begins to bloom, he cuts it short.

“I got an article you need to read,” he abruptly informs me. “Where’s your car? Pull it up. Let’s go.”

Confounded, I pull my car up. Laughlin locks the shop door behind him, and before I know it, we’re in Laughlin’s driveway. He steps inside his house and returns holding a framed newspaper clipping. The clipping displays Laughlin showing off two keys to the now demolished James K. Polk Hotel. Pulling out of his driveway, Laughlin attempts to sell me on his landlord.

“You need a place to stay?” he questions. “I got the best landlord in the city.”

On our way back to his store, Laughlin points out practically every historic home we pass and rattles off historic facts at rapid pace. He’s overflowing with Murfreesboro knowledge and eager to share it with anyone who will lend an ear. Luckily for Laughlin, his shop is only a few blocks away from someone who’s always keen on hearing Laughlin’s stories and opinions about the history of the city.

Rutherford County archivist John Lodl has been working with Laughlin for the last 10 years.

“I was a grad student working here in the archives, and Jim came in one day to see what we were about,” Lodl says. Since then, the two men have collaborated on nearly every exhibit the archives building has held.

“Jim knows a lot of people, meets a lot of people at Digital Planet,” Lodl continues. “I guess 10 years ago, he got into collecting. So now he’s known as this big collector in town, so if anybody has old stuff, knows about old stuff, or just has questions about old stuff like we do, we call Jim. Just through buyin’ stuff off eBay, anything that has the word ‘Murfreesboro’ in it, he’s interested in it.”

How can a man who doesn’t use a computer buy things on eBay?

“He calls me every Monday: ‘Hey, you looked on eBay this week, anything from Murfreesboro on there?’” Lodl admits, chuckling.

Laughlin’s collection consists of artifacts, old postcards and old photographs, things that might seem mundane to anyone else, “but Jim really brings it to life,” Lodl says. “He knows the people involved, the history involved . . . someone walks in with a milk bottle, ya know that’s nice and whatever, but Jim’s able to put the twist on it, the story behind it.”

Lodl walks into the exhibition room and points out memorial plates, pictures on the back wall and the postcards on display in the front lobby (“all Jim’s,” he says).

“We even send students to talk to Jim,” Lodl reveals. “He knows all the cool facts and interesting stories about this place. He’s a trip.

“I can’t imagine Digital Planet without Jim,” Lodl continues. “I can’t imagine Murfreesboro without Jim.”

It’s baffling to imagine one man not missing out on anything that has occurred in Murfreesboro in the last 40 years. How did he do it? He never left.

“I ain’t left the state in 41 years,” Laughlin says. “Moved here and never left.” That was true until this past summer when, for the first time in four decades, Laughlin left Tennessee to visit friends in Michigan.

Corey Cummings, an employee at Digital Planet’s other location on Robert Rose Drive, remembers Laughlin calling him one day to settle his weary mind.

“I could tell he was apprehensive about leaving,” Cummings says. “I could hear his voice shake a little. I’d be nervous if I hadn’t left the state in 41 years. I’m not even that old.”

“Yeah, I was a little anxious,” Laughlin remembers. “Michigan’s damn near Canada!” Laughlin admits, “I had a good time, though. I’d like to visit again, maybe one of these days.”

Yet, being the only employee at the Lytle Street location, it’s difficult for Jim to get off work for such an excursion. The possibility of retirement rears its head, and Laughlin looks at me. “I ain’t gonna walk here with a cane, I’ll tell ya that,” he laughs. “One day I’ll get Social Security or take a nap or somethin’, but I ain’t comin’ in here on a walker.

“I give myself a few more years,” he adds. “Ya know people joke about putting ‘$3 off all CDs, DVDs and games’ on my tombsto . . . hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Laughlin makes his way around the mountains of media to work his magic on the customers, to try to make every sale count.

On the doorframe on the way out of the store, there is a small sticker featuring a smiley face in blue jean overalls watering a literal cash crop. The sticker reads: “Gotta make my money grow,” a slogan Laughlin probably reads every day. It’s hard for many Murfreesboro residents to imagine a Digital Planet without Jim Laughlin, but it’s safe to assume that as long as there are used CDs, movies and games to be sold in this city, he’ll be pushing them.