Back in the Day ~ Listening to the Radio

My parents had a radio very much like this one when I was a child.  I remember it well.  It had been placed in a corner of the living room next to the sofa where my Dad sat.  His favorite spot.  He would sit there reading his newspaper and listening to the radio.

On the other side of the radio, next to the radiators that heated our home, was an old hassock.  When there was a program that I wanted to listen to in the evening, you would find me hunched over the hassock as close as I could get to that radio so I wouldn't miss anything being said or played.

I was not allowed to touch the knobs of this radio...apparently I was considered too young to master all the intricacies of locating stations, etc.  The radio had several bands, including a shortwave band; and since it was wartime (1940's), I remember my Dad listening for news of the conflict from wherever he could find information.  I still remember one time hearing the fanatical and screeching voice of Adolf Hitler, though I couldn't understand a word he said.

My Dad listened to boxing during this time.  I remember the fights with Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott and Billy Conn, because I was right there, hunched over the hassock listening.

On Saturday afternoons, my Dad would turn on the Metropolitan Opera program.  I wasn't too interested in that music, mainly because I couldn't understand what was being sung, but I remember it in the background of whatever I was doing in the house that day.

Of course, there were lots of other programs that we listened to...  I recall Amos and Andy, George Burns and Gracie Allen, The Great Gildersleeve, Ellery Queen, The FBI in Peace and War, Baby Snooks, Gangbusters, Dr. Christian and soooo many others.  You can look here for a long listing of some of those 1940's programs.

The old radio finally gave out and my brother, who had begun working at Miller and Rhoads or Thalhimers (don't remember which) gave my parents a new console radio/record player for Christmas in the late 1940's.  He was so proud of himself that Christmas. I don't think we had a record player before that time, though I vaguely remember a child's record player in the house at one time; but I think that was later in my early teens.

It's amazing how a photograph can bring back so many memories.

 

Remember these?

Remember these card catalogs?  I surely do.  Of course, anything remotely having to do with books is going to be on my agenda!

If you were in school before the computer age, you knew about card catalogs.  Every library had them.  How else would you know what books the library had in its collection.  Did it have books on the subject you had selected or been given to write about?  Was the book located in the main body of the library?  Or did you have to ask someone to go to the Stacks to get the book you needed.

Each card contained all the pertinent information about a particular book.  Title, author, ISBN number, etc.  How many times did you have to copy this info down, so that you could complete a footnote or a reference paper for your assignment?  You had to copy it down just right too.

The card also provided you with the information about where the book was located in the library.  Which section... which shelf.  You had to know the basics of the Dewey Decimal system while you were at it.  Each book had a magical signature consisting of letters and numbers.  If you followed directions that the letters and numbers gave, you soon found your book; or discovered that someone else had beaten you to it.  Then you would have to wait for the book to be returned or find out from the librarian if a branch library had a copy.

Nowadays, of course, with the advent of the computer, all this has changed.  Locating a book is probably faster now, but we may have lost something by it.  Life has sped up... There's no more lingering in the card catalog to discover a book that you hadn't even been looking for; but that would lead to another avenue for a reading adventure.