There is something old school about radio.
You don’t watch it. You can’t scroll through
it, and you don’t have an algorithm reading your mind. You turn the dial, find the
voice you know, and let that voice keep you company.
I have a radio in every room of my home. I
suppose that tells you something about me.
For generations, Chicago has been one hell
of a radio town. Ballgames, agriculture reports, weather, traffic, music, news
and those comforting voices coming out of a speaker while we drove to work, sat
on the back porch or fell asleep at night.
Some of my earliest memories have a radio
playing somewhere in the background.
WLS-AM got me through the seventies before
I discovered the FM dial. Before school in the morning there was Wally
Phillips, who would play the Ellery Queen Minute Mystery. My
mom and I would try to figure out the murderer before it was time to leave.
Later there was Orion Samuelson giving us the grain and livestock prices. Funny
how life works. Back then they were just numbers coming out of the radio.
Eventually, those numbers became my livelihood.
I listened to Indiana Pacer games with my Gramma.
Sitting at the table playing Kings Corners and eating warm zucchini bread.
I fondly remember sitting with my Oldman on
a Saturday afternoon in the Dadilac, eating White Castles and listening to Jack
Benny shows with Chuck Schaden.
Sunday afternoons had their own soundtrack. I
sat on the porch with Dad while Dick Buckley played jazz records. Those Sunday
afternoons probably have something to do with why jazz still sounds like home
to me.
And sports?
Give me the radio.
I'll
take the baseball game on the radio over television any day, hockey too. A good
radio announcer doesn't merely tell you what's happening. He paints the damn
thing. You can see the runner taking his lead from first. You can hear the
crowd building before the puck hits the back of the net. The best broadcasters
make you feel as though you are sitting at the game without ever showing you a
picture.
Maybe that is what I love most about radio.
It asks something of you. Television
gives you the picture. The internet gives you everything at once. Radio gives
you a voice, a few sounds and enough empty space to build the rest yourself. Your
imagination has to participate.
Mark Twain supposedly said, “The
secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
I don't know how many thousands of mornings
in my life have gotten started the same way, with a radio playing somewhere
nearby.
From Wally Phillips and Ellery Queen before
school, to Orion and Max covering the farmers, Pacers games with Gramma, jazz
with Dad, baseball in the summertime and radios scattered around my home today.
That little box has been keeping me company for most of my life.
The voices change, the stations change and
the people sitting beside us eventually change too.
…But somehow you turn that dial, hear an
old song or the crack of a bat, and for just a moment they are all sitting
there with you again.
Television
may give us pictures. The internet gives us everything, but radio
leaves just enough room for your imagination and memories.
What is your favorite radio memory
Chalkheads?
