Radio: The Magic Carpet Ride

As a teenage Baby Boomer, it was a major thrill when I received a small, portable radio for my birthday. It was about 7 inches wide, about 2 inches deep and about 5 inches tall. A long pullout antenna allowed me to search the airwaves for any station whose signal was strong enough to push through the mountains into my little valley near the James River in the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley. A little cylinder would spin and spin past FM and AM stations seeking a sound.

The nearest major city was Roanoke Virginia, a little further south. FM was king of the airwaves; but AM was still a powerful queen. Rock n’roll ruled, and I thought DJs had the best jobs in the world.

Listening to radio was close to a religious rite for me and other teens, and what we heard lured us into a world of ideas translated into music--ideas that were beyond what we read in textbooks or Sunday School literature.

It was on that little radio with the pullout antennae that I first heard the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields and was amazed because it was unlike anything else at that time. In those teen years, I listened to a variety of sounds from “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” to “Deep Purple,” to “Surfin’ USA.”

Radio introduced me to The Righteous Brothers, Aretha Franklin, the Byrds, the Animals, Sly and the Family Stone, Simon and Garfunkle, Percy Sledge, the Turtles, the Doors, Bob Dylan, Emmy Lou Harris and hundreds of other Boomer entertainers who became part of the musical fabric of my life and the lives of my peers. These were not the musical choices of my parents.

At night when I couldn’t get a clear strong signal on FM, WOWO, an AM clear channel 50,000 watts station from Ft. Wayne , IN, blasted in my ear. I had no idea what kind of city Ft. Wayne was; I just listened because it had a strong signal. I was impressed to receive my music from a thousand miles away.

Radio was a magic carpet ride for me. It was woven of dazzlingly different designs and patterns from my everyday life. Radio gave me rock n’ roll and new ideas. I developed favorites and listened eagerly waiting hours for them to be played. Moreover, I enjoyed the exposure to new artists.

Now, I’m in a different decade of my Boomer life and I still enjoy radio—in the same and different ways. My radio signals mostly arrive on my computer now. There’s live streaming commercial radio as well as Public Radio from nearby and afar. I listen to these stations and enjoy the variety. I like the idea a program director or station manager has selected music for me; I enjoy the commercials.

Yes, I do enjoy being in charge of my stations on Pandora, and I am impressed by the multitude of music available at my whim on Spotify. I like it all. There will always be a place in my heart for radio—even if it comes to me via the Internet.

May I quote the Boomer philosopher we knew as Steppenwolf? “I like to dream, yes, yes, right between my sound machine, on a cloud of sound I drift in the night…Why don’t you come with me, little girl, on a magic carpet ride?”

Do leaders lose their moral compass or did they have a faulty one all along?

Recent news of international and national business and government leaders with faulty judgment have made the news and stirred conversation.

Here are my thoughts: 1) Many organizations (large to small; government, business or non-profit) have policies that reward those who deliver flashy “results”--regardless of harm along the way, who tell leaders what they want to hear, and who are willing to bend the rules. 2) Organizations brand as "not-a-team-player" individuals who have a less flexible moral standard. 3) Regardless of the "talk" of doing right, organization leader do not "walk" the talk. 4) Those who are rewarded for their "flexibility" and "team player" ability surround themselves with like-minded folks as they advance. 5) The process is self-perpetuating and those with a faulty moral compass continue to advance.

There are some who hold onto their beliefs and act based on their sense of morality. For example, I have long admired Senator Richard Lugar from Indiana. I believe he has a strong moral compass and uses it to guide his political decisions. And, no I don't support his political party or any other specific political party. 

In my 12 years in a large major corporation I saw those who got ahead by treading on others, by corruption, and by trickery. A few got caught along the way. Others did not. Frequently these individuals were on the "fast track" and were held up to the rest of us as examples to follow. I remember one entrepreneurial-spirited young man who used company time to build his own business over a period of two years; he then leave the company to run an already strong corporation. Many of the rest of us chaffed when upper management held him up as a positive example. 

Another “flexible” manager finagled his way into a top communications job by chicanery and was caught at last when the ad agency made public his demand for kickbacks. Yet, for years, the organization rewarded him instead of praising and promoting those who had a good moral compass along with skill and true dedication to the company. Many of us were aware of his outside “girlfriends,” yet we were helpless as he ruined the career of less “flexible” underlings and by-passed for promotion those with real talent who did not blindly praise him. 

Do I think the recent publicity will make a difference or make those folks change? No, absolutely not. They feel above the rules and do not feel badly about what they are doing. They do not think they will be caught because they are doing “nothing wrong," since they don't have a sense of right-and-wrong that we would recognize.

Until all organizations have a culture that “walks the talk” and has leadership that values skilled individuals who have a moral compass, nothing will change. 

One final note: please do NOT confuse having a strong sense of moral right-and-wrong with being “overtly, publicly religious” or with professing to be a follower of any specific religion. The two are not synonomous.

Answering "How Are You?" in Southern

Something a bookstore owner in Roanoke, Virginia, asked me a couple of years ago has been rattling around in my brain. "Why is it," she asked, "that when I (who grew up in another state and recently moved to the Valley of Virginia), "ask people how are they, they don't respond by asking me how I am?"

That was a new question to me and I couldn't help but think that I, who grew up in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, have always had a bit of reluctance to respond to that question and to ask it back to the questioner. Why is that?

Having pondered that question, I have a few guesses. My thoughts may be based on snippets of information jumbled together in a stew of opinion, but I'll share them anyway. Perhaps a reader who is experienced in linguistics and history can tell me if I'm even close to the factual evidence. Of course, my friendly bookstore owner who didn't grow up in the Shenandoah Valley may be overgeneralizing. 

My theories on why we "mountain people" aren't comfortable with the typical "HowAreYOU?" accompanied by "FineHowAreYOU" line of questioning are: 1) We consider it a personal intrusive question. 2) We don't want to reveal personal detail, and a "fine" response would be an untruth, and we are not comfortable with untruths. 3) We don't want to get involved with strangers on personal issues. 4) We want to be polite and respectful. 5) We want to keep a distance from strangers.

When I think back on the core values of my mountain, Scot-Irish, Presbyterian childhood, I view: privacy, honesty, tending-to-your-own business, being respectful, being polite and having manners, and being suspicious of outsiders. Now, I'm not saying these are all admirable traits; I'm just saying, these are core values I inferred from those around me.

The call-and-response "HowAreYou" ritual brings these values into collision. First, we are a bit shocked that someone who is not family or a close neighbor asks an intrusive question because the questioner is being nosy and crossing an invisible border. Then, we remember our manners and want to polite but we don't want to answer that the mortgage is past due, we just lost our job, the kids were arrested for drugs and we don't know where the next meal is coming from. (Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit.) So the manners kick in, and we fake a smile and reply "fine." Honesty versus manners. Keep your distance from others.

However, we don't want to be intrusive into the questioner's life, so we don't follow up with the "and how are you?" easily. We don't want to put that stranger into the same uncomfortable position we were in. 

I’ve just returned to live in the Shenandoah Valley, this time at the top of the Valley in Winchester, Virginia. For over 30 years I lived in Indiana, where Hoosiers have mid-Western politeness. I’ve visited 48 of the 50 states, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, and South America. It’s easy for me to ask and answer in Spanish “Como estas?” “Estoy bien, y tu?” because it’s what I’ve learned from phrase books. Yes, I can go through the “HowAreYOU?” ritual with only minimal distress now. If the situation demands it, I even ask “and how are you?”

But I know this is different than when an old-timer from “back home” asks “how are mama and them?”