Remembering Radio's Golden Age

My Grandma Terri..I love her!

INFORMATION:

I chose to interview my grandma Terri. She is 66 years old and she still one of the coolest people I know. I look up to her a lot.

CONTENT:

My grandma listened to the radio as far back as she can remember, but she is going to guess that she started when she was about 5 years old. She grew up living with her grandparents and a friend of her grandfather named Luke loved to listen to the radio, especially the news reports. All through her early childhood years, Luke and her would stay up and listen to the news reports and do crossword puzzles. From 7-10pm, my grandma would listen to the radio either with Luke or alone. Her grandparents did not listen to the radio, and her friends weren't allowed to listen to the radio. She grew up in a very small town where most parents considered the radio to be "something that would corrupt young minds." As she got a little older, she began to listen to more entertainment shows rather than news reports. Some of her favorite shows were The Shadow, Amos and Andy, The Green Lantern and Fibber McGee and Molly. Some of her favorite artists to listen to were Jack Benny, Red Skeleton, Chuck Berry, Peggy Lee and Elvis Presley. One of her favorite memories during the golden age of radio was the rebellious nature of listening to the radio that existed in her town. Every weekend, my grandma and her friend Barbara Jean would spend the night at either's house and listen to KUDL in Kansas City, which was a station that played all the music that they would have gotten in trouble for listening to. Another one of her favorite memories was the decoder rings that some entertainment shows used. She loved rushing home from school every day to see what message would be delivered to only those lucky ones who owned such a ring. She said the radio is much different today than it was back then. During the golden age, radio had mainly programs that were solely for entertainment, such as Little Orphan Annie and Stella Dallas, two of her favorites. Music was hardly ever played until the later years of the golden age, and music is the most commonly heard aspect of current radio stations. Not many recurring entertainment series, if any, can be found on today's radio stations. She said the number one thing that younger generations tend to forget is how different entertainment is today than it was when she was growing up. Radio was all they had during those years, but TV now serves as a huge competition for radio. My grandma thinks that younger people do not realize how cool it is to see a TV in every home because this was not at all the case when she was younger. To this day, my grandma is still a huge fan of the radio and misses all of the shows that added so much to her childhood. From this interview, I learned how much of an impact radio had on people who are much older than I am. Most people would not consider radio to be more entertaining than television nowadays, but it was really interesting to hear about days when TV wasn't an option. But even though TV wasn't an option, people like my grandma still feel that their childhood was definitely entertaining thanks to the golden age of radio.