Prairie Dust, Chapter 5
An Ocean, A World, A Universe (MUSIC, part 2)
The Radio
Of course my ten or eleven year old self had no access to the internet thus YouTube. But I did have a radio. The one pictured is similar, although the one I had was green. It took awhile for it to warm up, then the songs would pour out:
Tubes glowed within. Sometimes in the evening depending on where I put the wire antenna, or the weather conditions, or the way I held my mouth, I could get something besides KFH in Wichita. Maybe even as far away as Chicago!
It all seemed pretty exotic.
I was drawn to catchy, goofy tunes like “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (Camp Granada Song)” or similar tracks:
Record Player
Somewhere around the age of twelve, I wheedled and begged and pleaded, finally wearing down my dad, who was no great fan of pop or silly music. But this was a GREAT DEAL!
For a mere ($??.00) I could get a *record player* and *an assortment of FIFTY 45 rpm discs*, rushed to our address!
For the first time I was branching out from dad’s classical album collection, or church stuff we sang as a family! There were tunes like these:
or this (now) probably politically incorrect song:
and even a couple by the notorious Troggs:
There was even one side that apparently was so raw, dad took it and scratched it to smithereens, which of course made we want to find it and listen- but I didn’t find it until much later.
And yes, it WAS pretty raw.
For all his misgivings, dad supported me in my music journey. In fact the next step opened up a whole new dimension.
The Guitar
For whatever reason, one day dad invited me to go with him to McPherson, about an hour’s drive from Hesston. One to one time with dad was pretty rare, and taking a drive with him was even more rare.
We pulled into a Crabb Music parking space on Main Street, and dad told me, “Pick one”, and motioned to the wall of guitars.
I had no idea what to look for, so I chose the biggest one I could find- this Harmony guitar and its chipboard case. (Which despite years of abuse, the case lasted fifty years or so, although it was pretty tattered when I finally replaced it with a shiny new chipboard case. And to my shock and surprise, I found myself weeping as I left the old one behind.)
Like I Said…
“An Ocean, A World, A Universe”. This guitar opened up a new reality for me, what seemed like infinite possibilities.
More on that later. For now, I’m Steve Conrad, and I’m Mose Lee Gropin’.