My Secret Passion

Everybody has some dark secret that they keep to themselves. Freud would say that this repression relates back to some nasty childhood experience, but in my case, it actually evokes pleasant memories of growing up; but, you see, my embarrassment derives from the fact that it just is not “cool”.

I think the whole thing started with AM Radio. I remember first listening to KJAN AM 1220 out of Atlantic, Iowa, as just a wee lad in first grade or so. You see, KJAN was the station that broadcast if school was going to be closed for the day due to a snow or ice storm, so you wanted to tune in right at 6:00 a.m. after the national anthem and the farm reports. The announcer would then go through the list of schools in the area that had decided to cancel their classes for the day. If you were really lucky, you got the word right away. If you were semi-lucky, your school called in one or two hours late, which always could turn into a day off if the weather or road conditions didn’t improve. If you were piss out of luck, your school wasn’t mentioned at all, even when all the neighboring schools were off enjoying the winter's day. You could just picture all of their students going sledding as you sat through an ancient, 1950’s filmstrip in Mrs. Roth’s third grade class. The point here is not regarding schools calling off classes, which I hear nowadays has gotten almost laughable, as schools will cancel the night before, or even before the weather starts to get bad, which makes for an embarrassing situation if it is sunny and warm. The point is that I started actively listening to AM radio back in the middle of the 1970’s, and that it has burned my memory chips with an affinity for 1970’s mainstream pop and *gasp!*, disco.

Abba, John Denver, Olivia Newton John, Carly Simon, The Bay City Rollers…you get the idea. Hell, you might as well add The Bee Gees to the list. One of the clearest, musical memories I have as a child was riding in the back of my sister, Pat’s, car on the Omaha freeway, coming back from a visit to the Westroads mall. Rain was pouring down as a strong summer thunderstorm was hammering the metropolitan area. And, on the radio, tuned I believe to a great pop station which later, sorry to say, turned country, WOW 590 was playing one of the classics of 70’s pop: Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band. I was hooked by the harmonies of this one-hit wonder in monotone. It was groovy, goddamn it…pure, unadulterated grooviness.

Growing up on the farm in the last generation before the advent of the internet and the current myriad of communications choices, I came to appreciate the simplicity of AM radio. FM, of course, has a better sound quality in stereo, but AM had a range that you couldn’t beat. I built a crystal radio once, and could just barely get KJAN on it, but the anticipation of pulling a voice out of the sky with a bunch of copper wires wrapped around a cardboard tube was like participating in the vanguard of science. AM let you pull off some interesting feats of reception as well, introducing you to the wider world, in a time before the world wide web. Once in a while, when the atmospheric conditions were right, you could pick up New Orleans or Chicago on the radio in the evening. I remember cruising the back roads of Audubon County as a teenager, and I picked up WLS in Chicago with Phyllis’s “Sex Talk” program. Beyond being just a 500 mile feat of reception, that was an experience in itself: you didn’t get sex talk on KJAN! What KJAN did offer was a feature at 7:30 in the morning called “Worrybird”, which I think was probably one of the only one-way radio talk shows to exist. Callers would call in during the 15-minute program to complain about whatever was getting their goat, but, in the spirit of a small town, you didn’t get to hear the caller—they remained safely anonymous. God forbid that the neighbors could identify who the complainer was! If known, the culprit would likely receive a friendly smile at the store and lots of gossip behind his or her back, so instead, the announcer relayed the gist of what the caller was saying to the listening audience.

Later, after high school and college imprinted me with a concept of what is “cool” and what is not, I guess I kind of put my love of 1970’s AM radio fare on the back burner. And I do like a wide variety of other kinds of music, everything from classical to British invasion to punk to grunge to indie to classic rock and even heavy metal. But it is time to come clean. I am, so to speak, out of the closet. I will no longer get Rocky Mountain High with the headphones on. Mamma Mia! Freak out! Do the hustle! I’m a dancin’ man and I just can’t lose!