The Little Black Radio

There it was, the little black radio, high above my head on a little wooden shelf, right above where my mom worked in the kitchen. The radio was black with cursive letters in cream that said “Admiral.”
I never touched that radio even when I was grown. That radio was my mom’s. I have seen radios like that one at flea markets. In fact, just the other day I saw one. It was for sale for twenty five dollars. I have no idea how much my parents paid for that radio, but it certainly wasn’t that much.
My mother listened to “soap operas” on the radio while she worked. I did too. One that I remember was “Ma Perkins” That program lasted for fifteen minutes. The program was probably only about seven minutes long. She advertised Oxydol detergent.
Besides “soap operas” the radio had fun programs on it. One was Fiber McGee and Molly. Fibber was a great one for stuffing things in his closet until it would hardly close. Every time the program came on Molly would have him get in the closet for something, and the sound effects people would make it sound like everything under the sun was falling out of it. I have two Fibber McGee closets at my house. I stuff them as full as I can. I never have enough closet space. There was another was one I really liked. It was just for kids. It was called “Sky King” He had an airplane and always caught the bad guys. There’s only one more I can remember, and that was about the Canadian Mounties. It too, was like the Sky King show.
I would sit in the kitchen and listen to my stories just like my mom did. It was fun.
Mom and dad would listen to the radio in the evening. We had no television, so radio was our entertainment. My father also read to my mother while she was mending, or other quiet work in the evening. I never liked the books he read because they were geared towards grownups.
I can remember my dad reading to my mother when I was a teenager. My love for reading came from both parents. Mother loved to read too, she just didn’t have much time for it when I was little. One afternoon the radio had some rock and roll music come on
and I started dancing around and my mother grabbed my hand and started jitterbugging with me. I was shocked. I will never forget that day. She said, “Well you know I used to be a teenager, too.”
It is so difficult for children no matter how old they are to imagine their parents being young. The little black radio reminded me that mine once were.