Harry Heuser's post about a 1936 question of who would be the big radio stars by 1950 caused me to contribute a few cents' worth to that interesting thought. Then Harry opined (how's that for a grandly archaic word) that I might not view the end of network radio as a major, end of an era event.
Not quite right, Harry. Maybe it's my age or my badly split personality that lets my fragmented brain think two or more thoughts at the same time. Is that what you call paradox? Whatever you call it, the part of me that grew up listening to what is now Old Time Radio in the '30s and'40s misses it, mourns its loss and often wishes I could tune into Jack Benny on Sunday and Fibber and Molly on Tuesday. Listening to recordings of those old shows just isn't the same.
But like Tevye in that great "on the other hand" scene in "Fiddler," there is my other hand, the part of me that began a radio career in 1950, at the tail end of radio's so-called golden era. I miss that free form radio, too. And I miss AM radio as the major home entertainment medium. AM was still king when I got into the business. Antique radio collectors, unless they want to listen to Rush Limbaugh and pop shrinks, have a hard time hearing a non-local station through the dreadful electrical interference caused by devices that didn't exist when those magnificent 12 tube superheterodynes in their beautiful cabinets were built. A VCR (don't bother to tell me nobody uses those anymore) or a DVD player can wipe out the whole AM radio band with a horrendous buzz. Those "environmentally friendly" squiggly light bulbs that contain mercury also emit terrible radio frequency interference. I hardly turn my big old Zenith on anymore. WGN did make it across the lake pretty well, but now that once great station is going to pot.
So here I am, all elderly, messed up and fragmented, not quite sure if I should say so long to an old love, quit thinking about her and find myself a new one. Were I as young as Harry (aren't you pleased to hear that, Harry) I could think about radio as history and study it and not get all personal and nostalgic about it.
On the other hand ........
I never think of you as anything other than a contemporary, Clifton—and one I can talk to and learn from at that!
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant, when I commented on those "1930s predictions of radio's future" was whether you felt then, in 1950, that you were getting into a business that was past its golden age, or whether you saw those changes as your golden opportunity.
At least you managed to make a career out of that love (and found your love through that career!); when I decided to write my dissertation (some years after I started listening just for the joy of it), it was pretty much an academic death knell. Who, besides us, wants to know about the old superheterodyne!
I have no regrets, though. I still love the radio. So, let’s keep going on about it. You reminisce, I try to catch up. After all, “pining” gets easier when it starts with an “o.”