Radio Days

I have no idea exactly how it worked, but I built it and it did. It was a Crystal Radio that I got for my birthday and put together all by myself. It sat perched on my bedroom window sill to get the best reception it could—even then it was fuzzy at best. Paul McCartney’s “Hands Across the Water” was the first song I heard it play. Today, I laugh at that old staticky “butter wouldn’t melt so I put it in the pie” part. I thought that old, crackly, filtered sound was just my radio reception. But no—I guess Sir Paul recorded it on his home-made Crystal Tape Recorder.

When I was a kid there was no escaping radio. Not that we wanted to. 1320 KCPX, was the radio mecca for my anybody who was cool. The music was all top 40 and the deejays were all top notch. Lynn Lehman, Wooly Waldron and “Skinny” Johnny Mitchell all laid down the stacks of wax interspersed with news, weather and plenty of contests. The contests were fun unless you had a rotary phone. Those 9s and 0s took forever to dial and speed was of the essence if you wanted to be Caller Number Three.

One day, I sat down and wrote “Skinny” a letter. I asked if he would play my three favorite songs in a row so I could record them with my portable cassette player. He actually wrote back telling me to tune in that Friday at 8:00 and he would do just that. And he did. “Seasons in the Sun,” “Spirit in the Sky” and the totally obscure “Gimme Dat Ding” by the Pipkins. I was the happiest kid on earth.

While getting ready for school one morning, I had the radio on waiting to hear the “Lehman Lemon Award”. I told myself that the next song that came on would be my and Wendy Deters’ Love Song. She had no idea I had a crush on her so it would be my little secret. The song ended up being “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”—my favorite. It was destiny.

KCPX was also the home of Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40.” We’d listen to the countdown every weekend writing the songs down in order—always excited and never surprised to hear what the number one song would be that week. “Love Will Keep Us Together,” “You Light Up My Life” were a couple of standouts. After a few months of writing them down, we realized it was easier to pick up the printed list from Broadway Music. Of course, the end of the year Top 100 was epic. We’d spend all day with pen in hand keeping track of the most important news of the year..

One Easter, on a rainy drive out west, our family sludged down a muddy road. The windshield wipers on our Suburban kept the beat to the “Bennie, Bennie” of “Bennie and the Jets.” We had no idea how such an amazing act of synchronicity could happen, but it did. Every time I hear that song, I remember my family in our wet Levis and mud-covered tennis shoes, sludging and singing along.

Weekend nights were cool, too. That’s when Dr. Demento came on. An hour full of Weird Al, Tom Lehrer and crazy novelty songs like “Dead Puppies” and “Roly-Poly Fish Heads” gave me my musical version of MAD magazine.

KCPX wasn’t the only station played in our home. Mom liked to listen to KALL 910. Dan Tyler, Tom Barberi and Willie Lucas would jabber as she vacuumed and dusted. Musical programming was all of the adult contemporary stuff like Dionne Warwick and Sergio Mendes. I can’t even guess how many Corey Anderson Pies she won in their Thanksgiving phone-in “Turkey Shoots.” At dusk, they would “put the sun to sleep” to the strains of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the 2001: Space Odyssey theme music). Mom would always doodle along with it by drawing a setting sun on her notepad.

Sports broadcasts were something that Mark and I took very seriously. The Utah Stars, The Salt Lake Angels and hockey games were not to be missed. When we couldn’t attend an actual game, we would lie on Mom and Frank’s bed with the Westclox radio tuned into KSL 1160 and listen to the Salt Lake Golden Eagles games. We could almost feel the chill and see the tiny puck zip across the ice as Jim Fisher did the play-by-play. We kept track of every goal, assist and penalty as the Eagles fought off teams like the Dallas Blackhawks, Seattle Totems and the Phoenix Roadrunners. Mark filed our scoresheets away in a Pee-Chee folder until the next game.

CBS Mystery Theatre was also on KSL. Very spooky stuff and a bit too dark as far as I was concerned. David loved it. It would open each week with an audio clip from “The Shadow.” The spooky, haunting voice would ask “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” That was usually enough for me. I’d go into the living room and turn on “The Jeffersons.”

It’s funny how my parents and grandparents recall the days when they’d huddle around the radio listening to “The Lone Ranger” and “Fibber McGee and Molly.” They seem to think that they had the monopoly on good imaginative entertainment. The hours we spent huddled around our own little clock radios were every bit as good. I feel sorry for the kids growing up in today’s radio wasteland. Years from now, the stories told to their grandchildren will consist only of the LowBook Sales jingle those free hot dogs once given away at a place called RC Willey.