Radio Daze

I had to go to Charlotte last night. The folks were arriving at the airport, back from their jaunt, and I was the designated picker-upper.

I took their van, because I knew they'd appreciate the extra room to stretch out, and more than that they'd appreciate the fact that after five hours in the smoke-free air, they could smoke like chimneys all the way home. (podmobile2 is no-smoking so far - I want to preserve the new-car smell as long as possible.)

So I was zipping down the road in the van, which I hate to drive although it's a perfectly fine vehicle, playing CDs, drinking pink lemonade, and eating a bread-free sandwich, if there is such a thing. And after about 2/3 of the trip, I got tired of paying more attention to the CD player than I was the road, and so I started listening to the radio.

I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore. Occasionally on trips to B'burg I'll listen to NPR, classical music or the news there, and even less occasionally on the weekends I'll listen to our local "classic rock" station for a few songs. I just don't get excited by the radio much now.

But I was close enough into Charlotte that hitting the "scan" button became pretty interesting, and I heard a little country, a little jazz, and a little oldies.

I sometimes make trips north (can you believe it?), and those trips usually involve hitting I-77 North to C'ton, the capital of West By-God Virginia. It's a reasonably-sized city, but once you get about about 25 miles north of there, you're back in the country. And there's a strip of that interstate, about 15 miles long it is, where there is no radio to be had. It's always funny, never fails to amuse me, and I do it every time I'm on that piece of road - "it" being hitting the scan button and watching it scan, scan, scan, from the 80s at the left of the dial to the 107s at the right, without hitting nary a station. It just goes, over and over, and I guess it would go the whole 15 miles if you'd let it, and I'd probably be happy to watch if it didn't involve endangering myself and whatever nearest and dearest happens to be in the car with me.

Down south, well, now there's a different story. My sister, my cousin Jacob, and various friends have made a multitude of trips to Atlanta. There used to be one thing we could always count on. Well, two things, actually. One was the Big Peach, which you may hear more about at a later date. The other was that somewhere around Spartanburg, South Carolina, there was a station down on the left of the dial that played nothing but classical harpsichord music. We all called it the "Lurch Station," because it evoked such wonderful memories of "The Addams Family." We'd even go so far as to do Lurch imitations for the 18 or so seconds we'd listen to it. I haven't been to Atlanta in a couple of years; I don't even know if it still exists.

I love going into Atlanta, on I-85, that big six-or-so lane highway that leads into the city. You can listen to anything you want there, they've got it all, and there are two college radio stations there to die for. University of Georgia's is alt rock all the time and Georgia State's is full of the weirdest stuff I've ever heard. Songs that involve wild saxophones and car horns. And cattle.

Late late one night a carfull of us were heading into the city and found an all-reggae station. And when I say all-reggae, people, I mean it. Even the commercials were reggae. And one of the commercials was, and I promise you on my stack of Alan Arkin videos this is true, for Ex-Lax. A reggae Ex-Lax commercial. Does it get any better than that?

I can remember the summer day my sister and I were making that sad and long trip home from Atlanta. Coming back from Atlanta is always a depressing thing for me. I think it's something about driving up the map instead of down it, though I could be wrong. Anyway, the temperature was rapidly rising, and it was hot. I mean, hot hot. Inside the car (where it was frosty cool), the outside temperature gauge was telling us it was 98 degrees, then 99, then 101, and it finally topped off at 103.

We hit the scan button on the radio and after a while hit a Public Radio station. It was playing "The Skater's Waltz." It segued from that into "Winter Wonderland," and from that into "Sleigh Ride." It was an all-snow program! Which was psychologically very nice, especially when we stopped at a rest area and were brought to our knees by the outside heat.

Another great weather-related memory is from 1989, when Hurricane Hugo made it up to my little town and wreaked more than his share of havoc. It was a Friday morning, I remember it well, I was going out to my car to head to work, and literally had to dodge flying tree branches and trash can lids to make it to the vehicle.

I got in my car and started it up. On the radio, the NPR station out of R'noke, along came the strains of "The William Tell Overture." Not the "Lone Ranger" part of the Overture, but that part before it that goes "DAAAAAH! dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dahdah(dahdah) dahdah(dahdah) dahdah(dahdah), etc. I'm sure you know that part, especially from my rendition there. Anyway, that blast of music, with rain and wind and the lids and trees and small animals and children flying by, well, it couldn't possibly have been planned any better.

You know, mornings at 9am are my buddy Sethie's shift at NPR. I didn't know him so well back then, but I'd love to know if it was indeed he that played that piece of music, which I was convinced was put on the machine just for me. I like to think it was.

Anyway. That's what radio should be. The real soundtrack to your life.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Well, folks, tomorrow's the day. Tomorrow I drive (yes, I know, it'll be scary) the original podmobile back to the dealership and say goodbye to him forever. It'll be sad. We went 120,293 miles of happy road together, well, maybe 120,292 if you take the whole steering wheel incident into consideration. It's still going to be very hard to part. I loved original podmobile. Trusty, valiant, stalwart podmobile. I might weep.
* By the way, I had the nephew (who was looking for pocket money today) clean him inside and out for his trip. I was told by Mr M that this was completely flat-out pod behavior. I don't know that I agree, but there you have it.