The first radio that I remember was in Safford in 1937-1939. It was a table model made of wood in a Gothic style. It sat on a table in the living room and stood against the window. Why I remember this is because it's back is seen in almost all the photos taken on the front porch. You can see all the wires and tubes behind us as we posed for photos for my father. (I will try and post a picture of it, later.) My parents always listened to the news on a daily basis. I do not remember them ever listening to music on it nor to any programs or soap operas.
My next memory about radios happened when I was seven years old and in the third grade in Snowflake. On Dec. 7, 1941 the news about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor came over the radio and was the topic of conversation by everyone. The next day I was late walking the two blocks to school. All the children were already in their classrooms. As I was hurrying up the semi-circle sidewalk to the front door of the school, I heard the radio in the eighth grade classroom. This was very unusual since radios or films were not a normal part of the classroom in those days. I stood under the window of the eighth grade classroom and listened as President Roosevelt declared war. I somehow knew that this was an historic moment and so, even though I was late I stayed to listen.
In 1945 we moved to Phoenix and I remember being the chief dishwasher for our family. I listened to many operas with my hands in the dishwater. It wasn't that I liked opera, but that was all that was on at the time I was washing the Sunday dinner dishes. I also remember listening to "The Shadow" which was a mystery solved by the voice of the Shadow. There were other programs such as Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, The Lone Ranger, and some others that I seem to have forgotten.
At the ranch house, my father kept a battery powered radio on a high shelf near the ceiling and over the big window in the kitchen. He would always have the radio tuned to a music station and when we would come into the kitchen, he would turn it on surreptitiously. Since it would take a little while to warm up all the tubes, he would go about starting a fire in the stove or some other chore, and then the music would begin very softly. We would be really surprised because we didn't know where the music was coming from. He then would tell us it was angels singing. My dad loved playing this trick. We probably fell for it more than once when we were younger. Later on, we would just smile because we knew that he was going to do it for our younger siblings or visiting cousins.
In May,1947, I graduated eighth grade and what I really wanted as a graduation gift was a watch. They were very expensive in those days and so I didn't get one. They gave me a very old watch of my mother's instead, but for a graduation gift I received a portable radio. It was not very small by today's standards. It was fairly heavy, but what made it portable was the handle on top and the batteries inside. It only played AM stations. I don't know if they even had FM stations at that time.
| Similar, but a smaller radio than mine which had an arc of numbers |
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I really loved this radio. It was made of maroon plastic with gold numbers in a big arc across the front showing the station numbers. I really liked it and had read somewhere in some magazine that the way to protect gold lettering, was to coat it with clear nail polish. So I did just that. The nail polish dissolved the maroon plastic into a gooey mess and blurred all the numbers. So Sad!
Although my radio was no longer beautiful, I still loved it because it was mine and I could listen to whatever station I wanted. I could listen to the radio outdoors and even at the ranch that had no electricity. We spent three months at the ranch every summer and sometimes weekends or other holiday's, as well.
I could listen to all the popular songs on the local stations. This radio also had power to get far away stations. There was one station in Mexico that had a powerful signal since they were outside the U.S. regulatory agencies. They broadcast in English and played all the popular songs. They offered to send you records for only $1.00 each. I sent off my dollar and got back a record(probably pirated) of some song that was popular at that time. I think it was the only popular record that I owned.
In the summer time my sister and I had a little room separate from the the rest of the house. It was built over a cellar for vegetables and cheese. My sister and I could listen to the radio late at night without the rest of the family complaining. At night we could listen to KSL in Salt Lake and stations from other far away places.
We could also listen to "reality radio" by turning the dial all the way to the end. This would pick up police radio chatter from as far away as California. I remember one particular incident where police were trying to catch a criminal and were calling ahead for the police in the next town to board the train. This seemed really exciting ...something like a detective movie or a radio show only in real life.
The Sad End
I was laying on my bed one evening and Alleen decided to borrow" my radio. I was in a really bad mood and I kicked at her or jabbed her with my foot while still lying on my bed. She dropped the radio on the cement floor. That was the end of the radio and this is the end of my radio blog.
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