# 14 Radio –
When my mother was 8 years old their neighbours had the first radio in Raymond.
Everyone was invited to come over and listen through headphones.
When the headphones were put on Wyora, she was asked if she could hear music. All she could hear was static, but she nodded her head since she didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t hear the music they were hearing.
Well, that 8 year old girl lived to be 55, a short life when I put it against the number of years I have had.
Wyora did get access to lots of music. She is the one who taught all of us to love first the radio and then records that filled our house with the sounds of opera.
I was thinking about the joy of a radio as I reached for my cell phone, put on the CBC app and then listened to music, all the time laying on my bed doing my exercises. I have another radio in my bedroom, just too far away for me to reach but which I use other times during the day to hear news or to listen to Shelagh Rogers talk about books. And a third radio in my kitchen on which was a CD now plays Chinese music, a gift from a friend. Mary tried to change the disk, that hollow sound of bells and different instruments. Four year old Betty said, "No, don't change that. I like those sounds. I agree with Betty – I like sounds – all of them.
Everyone was invited to come over and listen through headphones.
When the headphones were put on Wyora, she was asked if she could hear music. All she could hear was static, but she nodded her head since she didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t hear the music they were hearing.
Well, that 8 year old girl lived to be 55, a short life when I put it against the number of years I have had.
Wyora did get access to lots of music. She is the one who taught all of us to love first the radio and then records that filled our house with the sounds of opera.
I was thinking about the joy of a radio as I reached for my cell phone, put on the CBC app and then listened to music, all the time laying on my bed doing my exercises. I have another radio in my bedroom, just too far away for me to reach but which I use other times during the day to hear news or to listen to Shelagh Rogers talk about books. And a third radio in my kitchen on which was a CD now plays Chinese music, a gift from a friend. Mary tried to change the disk, that hollow sound of bells and different instruments. Four year old Betty said, "No, don't change that. I like those sounds. I agree with Betty – I like sounds – all of them.
My earliest memory of the radio is listening to it in the car, as a child, on the way to the lake. When the reception got too weak, as no a we could hear was static, you gave Rebecca permission to teach us the lyrics to a popular song.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the year was 1974, for she chose Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle." It seemed we were getting access to forbidden knowledge. Forbidden because not even the adults in the car knew the lyrics, only Rebecca did.
I would be pleased if you had a backpack full of the lyrics of the songs in from the 1970's and 1980's. I am just finding time myself to hear the songs and learn the lyrics. It is easier now than it was then. Just about any song that you want to learn can be found on you-tube. As for access to forbidden knowledge, sad now that of all of the knowledge Rebecca has, none of it is forbidden and in fact all of it freely given. I wonder if that makes it less desirable.
ReplyDeleteor... if rebecca didn't HAVE the forbidden knowledge (ie. all the lyrics), she would at least have the hutzpah to make up what she didn't know?!
ReplyDelete