Getting Sappy

I've written about the radio before. You may recall my excitement over buying a radio at a thrift store and wondered why even after reading what I had to say. Well, I don't suppose readers already acquainted with the radio wondered, given that some probably are better acquainted than I. Well, the radio does fall short of its online competitors in many respects these days, but it can never be beaten in other ways.

If at night I turn on the radio, turn off the lights and draw open the blinds, the wonder of the radio becomes evident. The radio doesn't speed through a lot of cables, but rather flies through the sky where one's radio may yank it down to the level of mere humans. It's better even than a wifi signal which is confined the immediate area of buildings, and which is a lot of indeterminate data anyway. They're allowed to boost signal strength at night, extending the reach of far-flung stations.

There was something very special about pulling in a ballgame from a station in some other town once- to hear strange call letters and the name of a place I've never been. I could do that so much more easily now that it hardly feels very special at all. I could have any station in the civilized world, but there is no wonder in it to me. There is wonder in the radio. The transmitters are perched on on a high point somewhere.

Where I grew up, and where I live now, it's a mountain that already has a romantic quality to it without being the giant on whose shoulders the radio's launching point rests. When it does launch, to think of the incredible places that the signal goes, and at what speeds! I can imagine myself riding along through the cool night air, and that is something that I would not want to do with an internet signal. I appreciate that this kind of thinking is not common to very many people.

 I wouldn't be surprised to hear that even those who work in radio don't get so sentimental. There's the danger of being too close to something. Seeing how the tricks are done invariably robs them of magic, especially if their methodology is mundane or ugly as radio must be in this day in age- as it must have been even in its golden age. I prefer to be ignorant, myself. I don't there's any harm in that this time, is there?