The old radio was there for music, weather updates, and sometimes... just plain comfort. I remember coming in at noon often and finding my grandparents eating lunch and listening to weather and farm reports. Sometimes it was the Arthur Godfrey Show or some other entertainment breaking the air waves, as Papaw sat at the kitchen table sharpening a pocket knife, or cleaning his gun after a morning of hunting. It wasn't on a lot, just there when it was needed; like an old chair that always there to sit in when you need to. Whether on or off, there it was atop that old hutch, year after.
In the shop, I shined up the outside of the old radio with vinyl cleaner. Reconnected some loose wires. I cleaned up some contact points, and gave it a try. It worked, so I took it in the house to my room of old family treasures.
I set in my den, this box of old electronics, plugged it in, and rolled the crackly dial until the telescoping antenna picked up a station. As the fuzzy sound became clear, I heard the distinct voice of an early 20th Century New York City disc jockey. He was mid-sentence in announcing the next Christmas song; Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. I felt like I had just dialed my self back in time nearly 50 years.
The old transistors did their job, and the ancient speaker hummed and vibrated merrily as Bing sang the song that his amazing baritone voice made so famous. The sound of the old radio, and the radio stations' replay of the 1953 Christmas broadcast, brought back old Christmas memories that covered me like a new fallen snow.
There was the memories of the chairs under the shade trees near the creek, where sweet tea or lemonade soothed the soul in the summer heat. The cool autumn days of picking turnips. The winter days and nights around the old wood stove, basked in the warmth of the popping and cracking wood and the warmth of each others company. And Christmas. The table full of Christmas food, full of laughter, overflowing in love of the country life, running over with love of family. Some Christmases were white and some were not, but all were good to me as a boy.
The meals that I enjoyed ( the best fried chicken ever made, period), the conversations around the table, the last meal I had at the farm with my Mamaw Grace before she died, the last deeply sorrowful meal we had there after she left us, and a hundred other glimpses of the past, were as fresh to me as yesterday. All these brought on by the static sound of 1953 on a 1960's radio.
There are spots of the finish that are worn away where my granddads fingers routinely worked the buttons and dial. He'd tuned in to the same places over and over through the years. One of the most worn areas is the location that I had turned the dial too. I placed the dial where he had, and out of the box of wires, circuits, and remembrances came the 1950's and 60's. Coincidence? Could be, I guess, but I like to think my grandparents sent me there, to take me back, so I'd remember the joys of those Christmases past. A journey back to a simpler time, in a world still inhabited by the Greatest Generation and small family farms.
So, this Christmas season I once again have to say thanks to them, the grandparents on my mothers side, who helped shape the boy into the man. The folks who kept a country haven, and a wonderful grandmother named Grace who was an honor to her name.
"Thanks for the old radio Mamaw and Papaw". And, as our old friend Bob Hope would say back in the day, "Thanks for the memories."
From all of us at the Chicken Ranch, "May your days be merry and bright...and may all your Christmases be white."
