It was a Saturday afternoon in October. I was ten or so and laying on my stomach on the faded yellow carpet of our living room floor with my ear to the speaker. Every Saturday, after chores with Dad, we’d turn on “Those Were The Days,” hosted by Chuck Shaden, an Old Time Radio show that ran from 1 to 5 on WNIB 96.9. Saturday was radio day in the Anderson home. When Shaden signed off at 5 to “Thanks for the Memories,” we’d dial over to Wisconsin Public Radio to hear a Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. Tacos for supper, Keillor for company and a bath for Sunday.
Now that I think back, my young life was practically submersed in radio. In the morning I’d wake up to WGN Radio 720 with Roy Leonard, “Spike” and Cathy and Judy. Every day at lunch we’d turn on Rush Limbaugh, and every weekday afternoon at 3 we’d tune into Moody radio to hear another episode of “Adventures in Odyssey.” John Williams would fill our afternoons with lively banter, and on Saturday mornings Lou Manfredini would tell us how to fix up our house and Nick Digilio would review the movies. On Saturday evenings after Keillor there was Weekend Radio and “Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy.” Sometimes we’d stay up late to listen to Cub games announced by Pat and Ron and to Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg debating tirelessly into the night with obscure members of intelligencia. When I couldn’t sleep I’d lay in my bed with headphones clamped to my ears, listening to Wisconsin public radio talk shows, Chapter a Day, Le Show with Harry Shearer, and finally BBC news at 12. I heard plenty of strange things through those late-night headphones: Big-foot encounters in the north woods, rampant liberal ranting, British news.
It was a Saturday afternoon in October and Chuck Shaden had just announced “Adventures by Morse, Episode 1: the City of the Dead.” The City of the Dead was a massive graveyard that lay in an abandoned valley. Only two old men tended it. I could see it in my mind, stark grave stones mounting in thousands of jagged rows against the darkening sky. The two men had heard the bell ringing in the old church, the bell that had been removed almost ten years ago. They went to investigate the ruined building and encountered a screeching thing in the belfry that attacked them and tore at their faces. I had never been more terrified in all my life. I lay stock-still on the carpet, sweating and straining to hear what would happen next, what this monstrosity might do. I never heard the end of the story, I must have turned it off in terror.
I just discovered this series online. What seemed then like the most awful imagination of man now sounds tame to my ears. The power of radio has lost some of its hold on me, but I still listen.