As a child, I tried helping my Dad with around-the-house
chores. When successful, it would
involve an AM radio that was tuned to some sort of sports event.
Our house was regularly tuned to a New York Giants or
Yankees game which automatically chose my affiliation later in life, and until
today. But, it was the radio that
provided the real magic of making the time fly.
I learned that it was possible to do more than one thing at
a time, something now referred to as “multi-tasking.” We weren’t forced to sit and watch a
television for entertainment. We were
free to roam about and paint, bundle brush, or wash the car, and still take in
the Yankees beating the Orioles. As a
matter of fact, it is almost a pleasure to drive because I get to listen to the
radio and am still able to get somewhere important.
But, listening to the radio today is not nearly as simple as
it was in days of yore. As a child who
was born before ball point pens were invented, and there were only 48 states, radios
were pretty limited in features.
Radios usually had one band – AM. That was not the case elsewhere in the world,
though. European radios were set-up with
AM, FM, and SW. The SW part is for
“shortwave,” most of which is still limited to foreign language talk and some
classical music, thereby limiting the audience in the U.S. Eventually, the domestic radios began being
manufactured in both AM and FM.
By then, the mold was cast and my listening habits
gravitated toward “Top 40” radio. Top 40
was the stuff today’s classic music is made of.
Perky songs interspersed with equally-perky fast talking disc jockeys
made listening to them a game in itself.
Today, even though those DJs are probably drooling in their oatmeal,
their crazy fast jive talk remains ingrained in my head. There may be prescription drugs for
that. But, I digress.
Since then we, as a society, have landed on the moon several
times, refined the coffee percolator, made television pictures ‘color,’ found a
cure for polio, and added two states. We
also have become more litigious.
“Do not attempt,” and “Driver is a professional,” and even
“Always drive on roads, never on people,” are just a few actual warnings that
appear in print at the bottom of the TV screen during commercials, clearly
written for fleas with magnifying glasses.
It doesn’t stop there. Evidently,
there is some sort of stipulation that the looooong warning at the end of car
ads – the part about financing – must be virtually illegible even to those
fleas.
The radio is not exempt.
Listening to car ads is more annoying than TV ads because, you can
simply look away from the TV. Radio ads
must read that same disclosure statement.
Realistically, I could read aloud that statement about financing, the
18% interest rate, length of loan, and how much the down payment should be, in
roughly 31 seconds. Since the ad itself
is only 30 seconds, the admen need to compress this by essentially slurring all
the words, thereby rendering them all useless.
In any case, satellite radio is another venue for
multi-taskers such as me. Satellite
radio offers 250 channels of music and talk, most of which I never listen
to. Yet, the big draw is the
commercial-free music and non-existent “station fade.” Yes, you can drive cross-country and never
lose a station.
Enter HD radio. At
present, it is a novelty in the U.S. and should not be confused with satellite
radio which requires a subscription.
In any case, I still listen to the radio and still enjoy
it. With the right announcers, baseball
games and football games and NASCAR events can be as visual on the radio as on
television. And, it allows for multi-tasking.
And, too bad for the Yankees.
