Radio Listening

I haven't listened to the radio in quite a while. I have several that can be used with electricity and/or batteries if a hurricane causes a power outage, but until then, they are gathering dust on a book shelf.

Radio used to play a big part in the family's entertainment. Years ago we school children and Dad came home for lunch every day. If we wanted a ride back to school with Dad, we had to wait until the noon news was over and Dutch Reagan, (later President Reagan), had given the sports scores.

After school was out, we listened to Jack Armstrong, the all American Boy and Little Orphan Annie before we went out to roller skate or ride the bike. I don't know if Mom listened to the soap operas, but the whole family would gather around the radio in the evening and listen to programs like Fibber Magee and Molly, and Jack Benny. On Saturday nights, The Barn Dance Frolic in Des Moines, Iowa broadcast live western and cowboy music similar to the Grand Ole Opery in Nashville, Tenn.

Long before transistor radios, my husband and I had a battery operated radio that we could play when we went to the beach. It was so heavy my husband carried it and it only played for a very short time before the batteries gave out. Transistor radios solved that problem and you could carry them in a pocket.

Listening to the car radio on a long trip across the country was both enjoyable and frustrating. Stations faded in and out. One would suddenly pick up broadcasts from Salt Lake City or big band music from New York as you turned the dial trying to get back a frequency that had drifted.

Radio is often used as background sound and every category of music can be heard.

One evening, while my sister, Adeline and my son were playing her favorite card game, Spite and Malice, a local Tucson, Ariz. radio station played a song that caught their attention. They phoned the station and requested the song several times. The disk jockey always obliged and played, “You Got The Right String, Baby, But The Wrong Yo Yo by Piano Red”.

Right string, baby
But the wrong yo-yo
Somebody knockin' on yo' do'
I passed this mo'nin' by the hardware sto'
I bought a brand new string
To fit in my yo-yo

Went on down to the doctor
To get this string put on
He turned around
And put the string on wrong
No need a-knockin' on nobody's do'
You got the right string, baby
But the wrong yo-yo
(piano)

Mama tol' me, papa did, too
'Some-a these here women
Gonna be the death of you'
'Better find out which 'un you crave, son
Some a-these here women'll
Take you to yo grave'!

See me comin', baby
Put yo' man outdo's
I ain't no stranger
I been here, befo'

No need a-knockin' on nobody's do'
The right string, baby
But the wrong yo-yo