Musical Memories: AM Gold

My theme is Musical Memories:  The Memories that music brings rushing back.

AM Radio.  For me it was KKAS 1300 in Silsbee on a beige radio just like this one.  When I was 6 years old, on up to eleven, Mama would have it on in the den all day, except when the soap operas were on.  The beautiful thing about a small town radio station was that different segments of the day were devoted to different types of music.  As Mama cleaned, played with me, and cooked I heard everything from Frank Sinatra to Puff the Magic Dragon to Roger Miller.

In those years, I can still smell the fresh mopped linoleum  floors, the chocolate pie out of the oven.  I can see my little Susie dog and remember playing Rummy with Mama.  It reminds me how secure and loved I felt.  I remember a plastic dress and go-go boots my sister Sarah gave me.  Rich green St. Augustine grass and pecan trees.  In those days the windows were always open in warm weather.  Music drifted out of the house and frogs and crickets vocals drifted in. I'd lay outside in the grass and listen to the sounds drifting out.

They had a contest on that station where they'd play a sound and callers could call in to guess what it was.  The first caller to guess correctly won.  Once, after hearing the sound, I told Mama it sounded just like Susie's toenails when she walked across the linoleum floor.  Mama thought about it a minute, and agreed with me.  Then she phoned it in.  We won!  Two tickets to a Houston Astros Baseball game.  Sad part was Daddy was on a shut down when game day rolled around, so we didn't get to go.

In my teens, this radio accompanied me and my friends outside while we coated ourselves in baby oil and toasted in the sun.  "Oh where, oh where can my baby be?",   This Diamond Ring, Gordon Lightfoot and many others touched our hearts and promised all the heartbreak and excitement that teen years could offer.  The scent of baby oil, the gossip and giggles, the crushes all come flooding back.  Casey Kasem's count down was king.  I still remember an amazing number of his odd factoids about the songs and the artists.

Then I'm grown and married to my Pete.  The old radio has been regulated to the garage.  But many country tunes poured from it as we worked all night on a car together. Talked and laughed.  Bonded and loved. I can smell the gasoline and oil.  Hear the motor roar to life.  See the muscles in his arms as he torques something down tight.  We are young and free again.  Able to conquer the world again.  

Step back in time and enjoy some of the best of AM Gold.

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Do you remember the days of AM Radio?
  Did you listen to Casey Kasem's countdown?
  What memories does AM Radio conjure up for you?

R is for Radio

My earliest recollection of radio or music is in the rent house Mama & Daddy had on Cooks Road.  The beige GE AM radio.  Very similar to this one.  I can recall mama having it playing while she did house work.  I know I heard Petulia Clark singing "Downtown" standing on the linoleum floor by the chrome legged yellow kitchen table.  The only images in my head at the time of downtown at night had no multi-story buildings.  Very few neon lights even.  But still I heard it on the radio and so it must of been true that you "could forget all your worries, forget all your cares" if you went downtown.  It was all brought to me by KJAS thirteen hundred in Silsbee.

Fast forward ten years and the same radio is plugged into an extension chord and sitting on the tin roof of a shed at our house on 1122 so me and two of my friends, Sherry and Kathy, could listen to tunes while we sunbathed on our beach towels slathered in baby oil on top of the tin.  There was Terry Jacks singing "Seasons in the Sun" and Edward Bear singing "Last Song".

Another ten years speeds by.  Mama and Daddy and Sarah are gone.  I'm married to Pete and Polk has moved out.  But that same radio is still in the garage on 1122 playing things like George Straight  with "Amarillo by Morning" and Alabama crooning "she's close enough to perfect for me."

Shift into overdrive.  Another twenty-three years gone down life's road.  Bubba born, grown and now with a family of his own.  Living in that same house.  The garage is falling down upon itself in the back.  Time and the inattention of renters has took its toll.  But the beige AM radio still sits perched on a shelf in the garage, chord plugged into the outlet.....I wonder...could it....still....play?