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?”