When I Was Your Age…

“When I was your age…” No, I’m not going to say I had to walk 2 miles in the snow to go to school. I’m not sure if my parents ever used that one on us, but my father used to tell us, when we wanted to buy a toy, that he made his own toy out of a potato and two toothpicks: voilà, an airplane.1

No, I’m talking about the radio. When I was your age, really when I was in high school there was only AM radio. (Reality check – FM radio did exist, but I didn’t know that. Second reality check – I probably did know that FM radio existed, but never drove in a car that had anything but AM radio. There, I approached something like an objective reality.)2

Back to my meaningless reminiscence: There were three radio stations we listened to in high school:

WQAM – Pop music preferred by jocks, juicers, and Key Club members who weren’t listening to Pat Boone on 8 track.

WSRF – Rock music preferred by surfers, heads (me), freaks (me), and assorted malcontents (me). If you didn’t dress out and sat on the log in P.E. you listed to WSRF.

WRBD – Rockin’ Big Daddy! R&B, soul, and a little blues. Preferred by black kids and heads who were really smoking too much3. I liked to turn it on and drive by the station on Rock Island Road and hear the radio get louder without touching the volume.

Then one Sunday hitching to Greynold’s Park4 I heard WBUS-FM. It was so cool. They played music you never heard on AM. Plus they had an eponymous theme song, no extra charge.

Do high school kids even listen to the radio anymore?


NOTES:
1 One of the lies my parents did tell us when we were real little kids and were getting out of hand was that they were running away. We’d be all “No mommy! No daddy!” and they would go downstairs and hide. We finally figured out what they were doing and just laughed when they ‘ran away.’

2 You really can’t trust my memory. I tend to exaggerate and get the details wrong, just ask my friend, Jean. She can give you numerous examples, but she didn’t go to high school with me so you’ll have to ask my friend Jerry if you don’t believe this. He did most of the driving. (In 10th grade anyway… I didn’t even trust my driving in 10th grade. I don’t think I even trusted my own driving until I hit my 40’s. Pretty soon I won’t trust it again.)

3 This is a not-so-subtle drug reference. I do not advocate or condone the use of illegal or illicit drugs. Really, not even pot.

4 The part that is east of Biscayne Blvd. There was a Greynold’s Park Love-in reunion not too long ago. I didn’t go. Time has not treated my generation well. Really, I went to a Led Zeppelin tribute band concert recently and I saw it with my own eyes.