From the moment that we rolled out of bed this morning, my wife and I have been throwing ourselves into packing for our upcoming move. We're as unhappy as we are exhausted. Neither of us likes what we're doing, but nevertheless it must be done.
I spent most of my day out in the barn, packing and pitching, spending little time lingering over what I was slinging into the back of my SUV. In the midst of the drudgery, however, somewhere between truckloads two and three, I did stumble onto something that made me smile.
In November's "Radio Echo," I reminisced about the simple pleasures of AM radio.
"I'd usually dial up an Akron station or, if I got lucky (and weather permitting), I could find a strong Cleveland signal. I'd hide a small AM receiver under my pillow, listening to pop music every night 'til the Ray-O-Vacs gave out. (That probably explains why I can sing along with every top-ten tune from 1966 to 1970.)"This afternoon I found that old GE transistor radio, stored in a worse-for-wear box of assorted objects from my childhood.
I carried it into the house, scared up batteries and installed them -- and nothing happened. Not a crackle, not a squeak, not a buzz.Checking the battery contacts (I know, I should've done that to begin with) I found them badly rusted. Thirty seconds' scrubbing with a pencil eraser put them shiny and got the little dinosaur working.
I found a strong frequency and, with the tinny speaker blaring talk-radio blather (it was either that or religious blather), I ducked into the attic where my wife was stuffing boxes. Her reaction to my find was priceless -- let's just say that she gave me a reason to use "nonplussed" in a sentence. I shut the radio off and shuffled back to my office.
It must've been 15 minutes later when one of the spawns strolled in, so I tried to impress him with my rediscovered radio. After a suitably dramatic buildup, I turned it on -- nothing. The damned thing had sucked the life from a pair of brand-new AAs while sitting silent on my desk.
No matter -- it served its true purpose decades ago. I think I'll keep it out for a while.
