I often wonder what radio means to people in 2016.
Radio, in my childhood, was our link to the world. My mother, of all unlikely candidates as women were so passive and subservient in my conservative culture growing up, was the one who spearheaded our radio listening. From dawn until dusk the radio sent out the news of the world in our household.
The very first program in the morning that I can remember was Don McNeill's Breakfast Club. I just looked it up and it ran from 1933 -1968! McNeill holds the record for having NBC's longest emcee job. The proclaimed - 4 calls to breakfast (da-ta-da!) featured a march around the breakfast table!
And from there the day was embroidered with Arthur Godfrey, Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Lowell Thomas, and of course the radio sit-coms in the evening like The Great Gildersleeve, Ozzie and Harriet, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, Hazel, etc., etc. We were highly entertained - and informed! The world was ushered right in through the transom of our simple home in Hinkletown.
And while today's audience may scoff, those hours of listening layered coat after coat of cultural knowledge that particularly we rural people wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
But here's the thing - today for the first time I thought of how imaginative radio is - a little like books! The words are either conjured up by eyes or ears, but it's up to the heart and mind to give them shape and texture. In graphic offerings, the work is all done for you.
Long live the radio!
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