I wake up at 3:45 am. This is no joke. It’s not something I decide to do for fun. Willi’s stomach flares up in the middle of the night and I spend the rest of it tossing and turning and listening mp3’s of Father Knows Best, the radio sitcom from the early 50’s. Think of me as refreshingly peculiar if nothing else.
I recently discovered old radio shows as an interest as well as an amazingly powerful sleep aid. In a world of widescreen, surround sound, and four dimensional everything, sometimes all I want is something simple that can help me fall asleep. What could be simpler than listening to an old radio show from the 30’s, 40’s or early 50’s? What could be more relaxing then that? You can close your eyes and just listen.
Because television was the runaway success that it was in the early 50’s, it tends to obliterate the popularity of radio, and all the content that was created before 1950, the year that television really caught on as a mass medium.
There are oodles of these old radio broadcasts available on the new groups in mp3 format…one in particular: alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime.highspeed is just loaded with all kinds of goodies. Why not check it out sometime, and hear for yourself their relaxing, hypnotic, sedative quality. They actually leave something to the imagination which is a nice change.
And so a new day begins...
My mother has told the story so many times of how she would listen to all the old stories on radio when she was little. We were just talking about it again about a week ago. I went with her to her doctor's appt., and he is a huge collector of antique radios. He has a few in each patient room. I just love hearing her talk about those times. We definitely lost something vital with the advent of television!
Posted by: leigh on February 17, 2003 7:24 PM