Even the thought is daunting — a device the size of a pack of baseball cards that holds almost 27,000 songs actually exists.

In my lifetime alone, we’ve advanced from records to tapes to compact discs to fill the musical collection.

In my early years, before tapes had become the industry standard, Dad would play Arlo Guthrie’s City of New Orleans on the record player as the fascination with trains and train travel intensified. Hearing old Arlo instantly takes me to those days, when the whistle sounded a symphony.

Casette tapes allowed us to record music — even from record players and radio stations. Tapes worked well until the slightest bend or twist of the thin tape wound awkwardly around the reels rendered the device useless.

The compact disc revolution hit its zenith in the 1990s. They didn’t sound as good as records, but were fairly inexpensive and could hold loads of music. One scratch, though, and the CD became worthless. The beauty of an iPod is that there are no tracks to scratch, just the seemingly endless storage space available.

A CD averages 13 songs and costs about $15, meaning it would cost about $300,000 to generate a CD collection matching the storage space of the baseball-card-sized iPod.

Having synchronized the device with three laptops of all the music I could find, the total came in at 9,949 songs — an amazing 34.7 days worth of music. Imagine turning on the first song, taking a 34-day vacation, returning home and the music is still playing — all different songs. It’s hard for me to fathom.

It also puts a personal musical milestone within arm’s reach — the 10,000th song. That selection will have to be the most important one of them all. One day, I may reach 20,000, but that seems as distant as the 10,000th.

Should it be a long song or a short one? Hard rock, blues or jazz? Or should it have a special meaning, something about which to forever wax nostalgic?

As age works on us all, it reminds the heart to reach back to the little things that were so special then — and even more so now.

Turns out picking No. 10,000 wasn’t difficult at all. I just had to reach back to those train whistles of my past.

No doubt it will be Arlo Guthrie riding on the City of New Orleans … through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea.

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Sean P. Murphy is web editor. He can be reached at smurphy@vicksburgpost.com