“RADIO
OF YESTERYEAR”
I burst upon the
scene in April of 1940, when radio was still in it’s prime as an entertainment
medium. My earliest recollection is that of my mother working in the
kitchen, listening to her favorite daytime “soaps”. “Young Widow Brown”….”Portia Faces Life”, and one
or two others that I don’t recall. As
a child of five, I thought it very strange to see my mother weeping over the
trials and tribulations of her favorite heroines.
It was a trait that I inherited from her because to this day, I get all
blubbery over sad shows. Thanks
mom, ha!
Back then, we all sat
down at the dinner table together for our evening meal.
Not like today, when (after TV dinners were introduced) many people chow
down in front of the “Boob-Tube”! We
ate dinner at six, and at seven gathered around the radio in the living room.
Ours was a beautiful old upright, made of walnut that my mother polished
till it shown. How I loved that old
radio. My grandmother would often pay long visits with us and she would gently
rock in her rocking chair and work on her crocheting and needle work while
listening.
Our favorite shows
were:
“Our
Miss Brooks”
“The
Lone Ranger”
“The
Red Skelton Show”
“Inner
Sanctum”
“The
Edgar Bergan, Charlie McArthy Hour”
“Fibber
McGee and Molly”
“The
Cisco Kid “
“Texaco
Star Theater”
Just to name a few.
We usually listened from 7-10 PM each night. What was the neatest thing about radio was being able to use
your imagination. When you watch
TV, what you see is what you see…cut and dried.
But, with the minds eye we could conjure up mental images of the people
and events that were wafting out over the airwaves. How we laughed at the antics of that mischievous little imp,
“the mean widdow kid”, on the Red Skelton Show.
When “Inner Sanctum” got really spooky, I would cuddle close to my
mom and be deliciously scared! The
wit of Eve Arden on “Our Miss Brooks was a delight.
Those truly were the days.
Christmas of my
seventh year, I received my own portable radio.
I loved listening to the weekend kids shows, like “Big Jon and
Sparky”, “Buzz Cory..Space Cadet” There
was a very popular kids show called “Uncle Ed” that met an untimely demise,
when at the end of one of the shows, “Uncle Ed”, thinking the mike was off,
exclaimed for all of his listening audience to hear…”well, that should hold
the little bastards for a while”! Goodbye
“Uncle Ed”! OOPS!
Anyway, I miss those days of yester-radio. It brought family unity at a time when the country had just been through a depression and WWII. Keep listening.
Rex D.
