Somehow, I'm always aware of music playing in the background in department stores, people's cars, or somewhere in the faint distance no matter how high or low the volume. Suddenly with the sense of a wolf, my head raises and my ears turn towards the sound. It usually doesn't matter the genre or radio station, chance are I know the song and begin to sing along. I was mostly unaware of this fact until a friend told me back in college, "Beth, I love how all you need is a radio playing to make you happy."
I actually remember my very first radio as a child. It was an am/fm dial clock radio that my mother used to set her alarm in the mornings. She must have got a new one and passed the old one along to me. I was so young, that I had no concept of the radio station call letters or frequency numbers, and I went through with a permanent marker, turning the knob and making dashes on the plastic cover to mark the place of the good radio stations. I remember turning the volume very low at night and listening when I was supposed to be asleep. I longed for the day when my radio would have a tape deck and recording capability so that I could record Rick Jackson's Country Music Hall of Fame radio show and listen to it over and over.
That day later came as a gift from my dad to my mom for her birthady. It was an enormous, 1990's style stereo system complete with, drum roll please...a CD player that was set up in the living room for all to enjoy. My dad bought one CD to go with the new, high-tech stereo, Dolly Parton. I listened to that album like a story book, playing it over and over, memorizing every single word of every single song. It was amusing to me as anything on TV.
Oh how my radios have evolved since those days. My entire music library fits on my laptop now and I update my iPod constantly. All I can say on our current Holiday adventure, making our way by car from New Jersey, to Texas, to Nebraska, to New Jersey again is, thank GOD for radios, in any form!
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