Radio Days - Theatre of My Mind

I can still picture my first radio sitting atop the dresser in my bedroom. A horrible, yellow-brown wood thing with a dull brown, gold-flecked grill cloth. It had a round illuminated dial with a red pointer, and one brown bakelite on/off switch that was also a volume control. It may not have been pretty, but to a ten-year-old, it sounded wonderful. I think the radio had originally been a bakelite mantle or kitchen radio made in the 40's that had been damaged. Whoever fixed it made a new case for it out of thin plywood that had the look of corduroy. This was long before transistor radios were available. It was filled with quite a few glowing tubes of various sizes that were visible through the open back. I loved the smell of the radio when the tubes heated up. I think it had something to do with the hot tubes burning the dust that had settled on them.

The sounds that emanated from that ugly box were magic. When I was in bed at night, I would turn on the radio low and listen till the wee hours of the morning. The sound was hollow, scratchy, and full of static, but that wasn't important. It was a doorway to the world for a kid living in Scarborough, who had never really been much further than his own backyard. The only stations it could pull in were the local AM stations that drifted in and out at the best of times. The real joy was after midnight when all the local stations signed off and the weak signals from Chicago, New York, Wheeling West Virginia and points between drifted in on the empty airwaves.

We didn't have a TV or record player back then, so the only entertainment was the radio. Saturday and Sunday night was my father's time to listen to hockey. The voice of Foster Hewitt called the game and echoed throughout the house along with my father's exuberant rantings and ravings at how good or how bad the Toronto Maple Leafs were doing, or how lousy the officiating was.

On Sunday afternoons, my father listened to a program of marching band music that featured military bands from around the world, but especially from England and Scotland. He also liked to listen to re-broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry, carried by one of the local stations.

At that time there were no FM stations on the dial and only a few available AM stations in Toronto. As best as I can recall, there was CBC, CFRB, CKEY and CHUM. CHUM was the favourite of kids, because the station had the audacity to play the new rock 'n roll, which was actually alright with my father. He liked it right alongside his big band, country and western music and marching band music. I can still remember the music I listened to as if it were yesterday. Songs such as Sixteen Tons, A Taste of Honey, Lemon Tree, and singers such as Brenda Lee, Johnny Horton, Tommy Edwards and Nat King Cole were staples on CHUM. I think I knew the words to all of the songs. I listened to my first rock and roll on that radio. Jerry Lee and Chuck Berry brought a whole new type of music into my room.

Whenever I could find them on the dial, I listened to radio dramas and mysteries. Who needed television? They were just as real. When someone slammed a door, I felt the windows rattle. When a car drove off in a shower of gravel, I tasted the dust. I felt the cold rain on my face in some litter strewn lane-way, off some dimly lit street, while investigating a probable murder. I scaled jagged, windswept cliffs on some remote sea coast to spy on the enemy. I dropped from a lone plane in middle of the night, to drift silently down behind enemy lines in some far-off land on a secret spy mission. I held a sputtering, flickering torch over my head as I explored a dank, bat infested cave deep in some snake infested jungle, on an adventure in search of lost treasures.

My most favourite radio time was late at night with my radio turned down low so it wouldn't disturb anyone. I'd listen to CHUM until it went off the air at midnight and then I'd fiddle with the dial until I found the faint sounds from a distant city, that struggled to overcome the sounds of static, whining, whistling, and screeching. With constant trimming of the tuner I could keep a station on the radio for a while, until it finally drifted out of reach. Then I'd search for another signal from far off that may have bounced off some clouds and ended way up here in Canada. It didn't matter what kind of music or talk it was. It only mattered that it was radio, and it was from places I could only dream of.

I was introduced to Kentucky blue grass, Hillbilly banjo, the Nashville sounds of Patsy Cline, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Buck Owens, Cowboy Copus, Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, Minnie Pearl, Hank Snow, and Hank Williams. I was infatuated by opera from New York and mesmerized by symphonies from Boston. I was enthralled by radio plays from Chicago and listened to call-in shows from Buffalo. I heard the religious fire and brimstone tirades of southern Baptist preachers who belted out their spiel in high pitched voices. It didn't matter to me. It was radio. It was theatre.

Wheeling West Virginia was my favourite late night station. Not because of the music, but because it was the station furthest away. It was barely audible at the best of times. I was fascinated by the slow talking drawl of the announcer's voice. It was like listening to a foreign language. Wheeling was the most elusive station. Most nights I couldn't bring it in at all, but if it was overcast, it would drift onto the dial for a short while. During the winter months, on occasion, when it was very cold and very clear, by some fluke of nature, Wheeling would come in crystal clear for hours. On those nights, I doubt I got much sleep.

Radio was my magic carpet into another world. It still is. It's a major part of my day. Not the top forty or the soft-rock stations that play the same mind numbing music over and over, ad infinitum. My fare these days is NPR, CBC, CJRT and any station that is has an IQ level a little higher than the average dew worm. I'm a radio snob. I admit it.