Bringing the world together.

 

“Hello, honey, it's me

What did you think when you heard me back on the radio?

What did the kids say when they knew it was their long-lost daddy-o?”

Years before Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, we would sit in our rooms, drive in our cars, or lay in the grass with a transistor radio and listen to the radio. There was no Spotify, iTunes, or Amazon music, there were radio stations and we spent hours listening to music, the DJ, and the commercials that filled up time. 

The DJ was what it was really all about. They would actually answer the phone and talk with you. They knew their power but they also knew if the kids didn’t listen, they would be moving on. I remember spending hours listening— and several times a day, dialing as fast as I could with the hope of winning something. It could be a record, t-shirt or a pizza but when you heard the DJ say, “I’m looking for caller number blah, blah and if you’re it, you will win a record!” That’s all I needed to hear and I was dialing like a mad man.

I have written before about the day my Mom brought a push button phone into our home. It gave me such an edge over the old rotary phone. I would say on a good dialing day I could dial 3 or 4 times (yes I still got busy signals)  instead of one time with the old phone. The worst was when you would finally hear the call go through, and your excitement would reach fever pitch, only to hear you were the wrong the caller. It was brutal.

Over the years, the prizes got bigger, the opportunities less frequent, and everyone eventually had a push button phone. Then came automatic re-dial and it all started again. I remember I was driving into the city and was listening to my favorite station. They were giving away tickets to a concert and part of the prize package was a chance to meet the performer back stage. The record was by Vince Gill, a country music performer; sure enough I got through and won the CD. A few days later, I was listening and I heard my name on the air. I had won of the backstage passes with good Ol’ Vince. The problem was, I really had no interest in going to the concert or meeting him; I called the station and explained I was not available to go to the concert and asked if I could offer it to someone else? To my surprise they said, “Yes.”

I knew my assistant loved Vince Gill—-and she went. She had the time of her life and I was glad I didn’t go. It would have been awkward to be there without an interest in meeting him; now if it were Queen, The Eagles, or one of my favorite bands…I would have been there in a heart beat.  (Oh yeah, if it were Heart I would have been there too.)

The photo above was taken outside of a radio station in Nevada. There was no one visible through the window, and it was a local station with a limited radius; one thing I knew however was..there was a DJ inside that darken space who brought the world together—-and it all happened on the radio.

Thanks for stopping by.