TO: CICPR-TALK list

This came into my email box yesterday from a local public radio listener, Nannette Drake Oldenbourg. It nicely brings into focus some of the reasons we're all giving our time and dedication to get this new public radio service on the air. Thanks to Nannette for her permission to reprint it.

~Jay Allison
March, 1999

Home Sweet Radio
or Anybody Out There?

My six-year-old daughter had first dibs at a friend's yard sale last week. She came home with a radio. It's cute, a micro version of a boom box, but it produces mostly noise with a few piercing notes. I resist the temptation to banish it only when I think of my OWN first radio.

My first radio was a silver, palm-sized TRAN-SIS-TOR with a black case. I held it up against my ear and strained to turn the dial as slowly as possible, each notch another station. At night, I made my head into a secret sandwich with my pillow, and my radio, to connect with the big world.

Then, one afternoon, radio became even more important. My parents suddenly came between us kids and the television set. They announced that we were moving to Europe and would have to get used to life without TV. So, my transistor accompanied me to Switzerland.

Soon I was living next to a Swiss cow pasture, trying to make friends with the help of a full-sized English-German dictionary I carried around. After days of hearing no English, I'd climb under the covers and search the airwaves for traces of my mother tongue. Sometimes, even when I couldn't make out the words, I could tell some distorted jibberish was English just by the rhythm of the sentences. I'd hang on to the signal, trying to reel it in. One notch too many and I'd again be lost in a storm of static.

My distant beacon was Radio Luxembourg, broadcasting from a boat at sea. I was so desperate I even listened to Bingo. "B-29," an undoubtedly good-looking disc jockey would repeat in a British accent. And I would listen in the dark.

Years later, after returning to the states for college and starting my first job in a rural community, I again found myself a newcomer and a kind of expatriate, turning to the airwaves for community.

Mornings, radio voices would come in through my clock radio, cackling and howling till I got out of bed. On the way to work, pop music was company on the country roads. But I was looking for something more. I missed the exchange of ideas that had come so easily at college.

Discovering public radio was like finding another dimension of the social landscape, like reestablishing contact with friends I admired. It was a relief to be able to settle into a longer news story, as though there might be a chance to understand, rather than simply be outraged by headlines. I had a new sense and mental image of myself and my fellow audience members. No longer just a crowd gathered to watch a street fight on a commercial station, we were more likely guests at a dinner party or participants at a seminar.

One of the stories I remember was about wint-o-green lifesavers. Susan Stamberg and science reporter Ira Flatow took the microphones into a dark closet to see whether their kids were right. Would green sparks form when they chewed the candies? Yes they did. Nearly all things were considered on this program. I was delighted to find broadcasters who took their curiosity more seriously than their own image.

A few years later, my husband and I discovered each other in Boston, and come to think of it, our courtship largely revolved around public radio. For six years, until we had children, we woke up gently with the birds on Morning Pro Musica on WGBH, chopped garlic and onions with All Things Considered, and cleaned house while listening to documentaries and interviews on WBUR.

Since then public radio has helped me remain sane while home with young children. But now that we've moved farther south on Cape Cod, it's been even harder to get. We found a dream house in a great neighborhood, but we forgot to check the radio reception. My heart sank when a ham radio operator said, "Forget it. There's a hill in North Falmouth, and now you're on the wrong side of it." And even when we CAN get the Boston stations, they aren't always ideal. Take the time mean Hurricane Bob was about to thrash onto the Cape. We didn't notice the neighbors boarding up the windows. We were too busy listening to a Boston host talking about Russia.

But I hear there's going to be a new radio station here on Cape Cod and the Islands. Life is about to become more interesting, especially since public radio can include local production. I look forward to hearing many voices from this region.

And now that there's more chance my daughter can tune into something great with her little radio contraption, I won't mind it so much -- as long as she keeps it in her room!

Nannette Drake Oldenberg
West Falmouth, MA