otoh

Note: This is being transcribed from my notebook a couple days after it was actually written.

There have been several days in the last few weeks that I’ve spent with a transistor radio. Usually I would have either the stereo or the TV on (occasionally both) and often I would be working on the computer at the same time. But these are not usual times. I will read and write during daylight hours, but don’t really enjoy either by candle light or flashlight.

I grew up before the era of VCRs and I remember when we got an independent TV channel in addition to the three big network affiliates and PBS. I spent a lot more time listening to the radio back then.

This month I was (forcibly) returned to thsoe days of channel-surfing. Back to the days before I had cable TV and a couple remote controls. Way before surfing the ‘net. Those advances make surfing faster and easier, but I’ve always been a channel-surfer even when it meant holding the radio and turning the knob. Which is just what I’ve been doing again.

From the left side of the dial to the right and back again I spin through jazz, classical, R&B, blues, bluegrass, country, rock, soft rock, classic rock, pop, and more. (I have fairly wide-ranging tastes in music, but there are a few channels I nearly always skip. And I’ve never been a big fan of talk radio so I usually skip those too.) This activity alone puts me in a nostalgic frame of mind.

As I hear songs from the last few decades I am often transported back in time. I recall the faces and places I would have seen then. (Somewhat disturbingly, I frequently recall images from the videos of more recent songs. Just whose memories are these anyway?)

I enjoy the tunes, but I’ve always appreciated a good lyric. That turn of phrase that instantly pulss me into the song. The distillation of a moment in time and all the associated complex emotions into three verses and a chorus (or less).

So on these nights, I’ve let the darkness wrap around me. I bring the three inch speaker close to my ear. I keep my fingers poised over the tuning knob. I listen and remember good times and bad. I slide between generations and genres. Sometimes I’m back to being a kid with a single AM station. Sometimes I’m in high school or college discovering new frontiers beyond my back yard and learning new ways to love. (Some lessons took better than others, but that’s another story.) Sometimes I’m a young adult building a new life of my own. I’m old and young and ageless and timeless. For a little while, there’s just the music. The storms and destruction and discomfort are in some other world. One I’ll get back to… right after a few more songs.