BOTCHA ME

In the mid- to late '40s when I was a kid, radios took the spot that TV's have today. Each day at 4:45 my sister Ginnie Lou and I eagerly plopped ourselves on the living room floor in front of the big radio to begin our favorite part of the afternoon. Tom Mix, the Lone Ranger, Red Ryder, Jack Armstrong, the Cisco Kid -- each a 15 minute serial full of excitement -- took us away from our world of schools and parents and chores and put us, for the most part, into the middle of the old west.

We were at the right age to be transported by romance and fantasy. We lived and breathed those serials and knew those characters intimately. Ginnie Lou and I each had our favorites but we listened to them all. Weber's Bread sponsored the Lone Ranger and since that was my sister's favorite program she insisted that Mother buy that kind of bread. I was equally adamant that mother buy Langendorf Bread because Red Ryder, my favorite program, was sponsored by Langendorf. Mother alternated brands weekly for years to keep the peace.

As I went into my teen years, I became a more solitary radio listener. After heading to bed I always tuned in to a late evening program hosted by a husky-voiced female disk jockey who played romantic ballads. She called herself "The Lonesome Gal" and signed off at midnight by crooning in a low whispery voice the words, as well as I can remember them: "Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I wonder if you'll know when my heart starts to sing. If you have love to spare, lips to share, why don't you be a pal? Share them, with your Lonesome Gal." How I identified with her! At that time I was just starting to discover boys, but since I was shy and timid and a nobody, love seemed a long way off and I felt her loneliness as if it were mine. My mother had no idea I stayed awake until midnight every night. I lived with the Lonesome Gal for a long time -- probably until my senior year in high school when I started becoming somebody and the Lonesome Gal wasn't so important any more.

In the summers all the teenagers who owned "portable" radios lugged them to and from the beach every day. The radios, not tiny transistors like today's, were big and bulky. I think mine used nine D-batteries. None of us had cars and we had to walk anywhere from two to four miles to the beach and back, but our portable radios always went with us. We baked in the sun for hours, slathered in baby oil, singing all the current pop tunes. This is not so unlike today's teenager but the difference was in the type of music, for this was post-WWII and pre-rock. For us it was Rosemary Clooney, Kay Starr, Don Cherry, Mario Lanza, Frankie Laine, Les Paul and Mary Ford, and Mantovani.

When I went to college I took my trusty radio with me but actually didn't use it much because my roommate and I were hardly ever in our room. And then along came TV and radios were all but finished, except in cars.

I grow nostalgic when I remember those happy hours with the radio. And then I have to laugh when I think that my kids' nostalgia probably will be for the boob tube. How romantic, right?