Starter of this subject: Nate Williams
Last post in this subject: 5/1/2000
Messages in this subject: 10
| Nate Williams | 5/1/2000 10 replies |
| The nice thing about the old radios with tubes is that they generated a little heat on top of the cabinet. Enterprising youngsters with a little spunk and courage could wake up on a cold winters morn and complain to Mom about not feeling good. Then when she brought a thermometer one could lay the bulb of it on this radio hot spot and va-voom, generate a mild temperature. Careful not to generate one up in the 130s, sometimes a thermometer shake down was necessary. Then with a "mild" temperature Mom would announce that it would be best to "stay home from school today". Once Don McNeil and the Breakfast Club came on at 8 AM you knew you had pulled it off. A day off from school while Mom ironed listening to Young Widder Brown and Mary Noble backstage wife. Nothing could be better. Was anyone else so naughty? |
| Charles Sexton | 5/2/2000 1 replies |
| I never thought of doing that, but I agree that staying home from school and listening to the radio, starting with The Breakfast Club, sure beat readin', writin and 'rithmatic. It only happened to me when I was really sick, but the old radio made whatever ailed me tolerable. |
| J.Cooper | 5/6/2000 0 replies |
| Oh yeah....I never listened to "Big Jon and Sparkie", since on a day off from school,the program was not on my radio dial..(wasn't that the show we were to listen to?) but even as a kid I couldn't imagine such goings on with those soap opera characters my mom listened to while dad was away at work.. Although I did believe Superman could fly and Captain Midnight and Tom Mix could do anything short of a miracle in catching the bad guys. As I would make those valleys and mountains with the covers, hide those lead soldiers here and there in the folds, dramatize another Lone Ranger and Indians chase..I laughed to myself of the troubles of MA PERKINS and HELEN TRENT and knew it was all just a simple fifteen minute Radio Show, for some reason, older women who stayed at home weekdays,listened to without fail. |
| Jeannie Davidson | 5/7/2000 7 replies |
| I remember well, well not so well, that Don McNeil did "The Breakfast Club" from Chicago but did not Jim Ameche (brother of Don Ameche) also do that show? Or am I thinking wrong. After all I was kinda young in those days. I do remember well that one day I did hear that show after mom noticed something on the back of my neck and face. She went next door and brought in our neighbour. I heard her say "measles"? ---"measles" was the reply. I guess I had a few days off, I can't remember, I was pretty young. |
| Nate Williams | 5/9/2000 6 replies |
| Jeannie: I remember when a ringworm of the scalp scare went thru St. Louis and at all the schools they had this purple light that they looked at everybody's head with - I wonder what that was all about?? Do you remember going into the Buster Brown shoestore and stepping onto a platform putting your feet into a machine that x-rayed your shoe/foot so you, Mom and the shoe salesman could see how much room you had in the shoe?? They talk about Hiroshima and Chernobyl, man we had all of that right at home in the 1940s!!! - Nate |
| Jeannie Davidson | 5/9/2000 5 replies |
| Nate: I wonder, is it a change of times when we can laugh about being sick in the 40's when, in fact, many of those genteel children's ailments could be deadly serious. Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough. Except for two days I spent in hospital to have my tonsils out when I was four,that was my come-back to any question of childhood diseases as though I had to brag about not being left out. My childhood friend had "Scarlet Fever" and nearly died of it. A year before that he had Infantile Paralysis which we now know as Polio and resulted in his right leg being two inches shorter. One day I watched my mother pull the tongue out from my older brother's mouth because he was suffering an epileptic fit and it scared me. She used to get so mad at people, especially the teachers in school who knew so little about what to do if he had a fit while in class. Of course, nowadays, you don't do that putting your hand in because you may lose a finger or two. My wife went kinda crazy when my oldest son at one year of age had a febral convulsion and was twitching his limbs like crazy. There again, I learned and as a firefighter (retired) I dealt with many, many times. Ah, the good old days! May they never return except in re-runs. Regards |
| Nate Williams | 5/9/2000 4 replies |
| Yes I too, besides having measles, mumps and chicken pox, did come down with diptheria and its great kids today can get by OK. My friend, Tony, told me how his father cried when they told him Tony had polio. Tony still limps today. I recall in the 1940s, the American Red Cross had this huge van which transported a person in an iron lung that one could see for a donation. Yes, there were some grim days back then. We sure live in good times today. |
| Carl Larsen | 5/15/2000 3 replies |
| Who needed "sick days?" I had eveery day, all summer to sit in the kitchen while my Grandma cooked, and listen with her to those great old shows. Even had a brush with "greatness" on the Breakfast Club -- when I had pneumonia, my mom wrote a sentimental poem and sent it in to Don McNeil. He read it on the air and published it in one of his books. It was called "Do you have a Christmas Tree Up There, Dear Lord?" When it was broadcast, my mom became a neighborhood celebrity. Even as a tyke, I enjoyed those times with Grandma and her endless line of soaps, including "Just Plain Bill." Wonderful times, and wonderful memories, sitting at a kitchen table covered with linoleum. |
| Nate Williams | 5/15/2000 2 replies |
| Carl: I sure hope your Grandma used Johnson's Glo Coat on that linoleum!! |
| Robert Flood | 6/12/2000 1 replies |
|
Oh what I missed! I grew up in the late 50's and early 60's and was young at the demise of Old Time Radio.
But I do remember being home from school one day and my mother laid the law down to me that any boy too ill to go to school was too ill to watch TV. (I think this was her way of putting an end to my "sick of school" disease.) Instead of curing me my dear mother instilled in me a great fondness for being able to sneak a small radio under my pillow and listen to the Harden and Weaver Show in the morning and other rebroadcasts of past OTR shows. Now that I think about it I lost my "sick of school" disease and caught the RADIO bug... I especially remember Sunday nights, 10pm, on WMAL 630AM back around 1964 and a drama entitled "Heartbeat Theater". It was a fully contained half-hour soap opera that was produced by the Salvation Army. They were good productions because after almost 40 years I still remember! Oh what memories... |
| Nate Williams | 6/12/2000 0 replies |
| Robert: You brought back two memories. The first being the small crystal set my Dad built for me when I was ten (?). It had but one earphone (the more expensive kits had a pair of earphones). Many a night I would fall asleep with that earphone on my pillow and wake up the next morn with my ear seemingly welded to the side of my head having been mashed down the entire night. The other being the small Motorola Model 56 X 11 radio I had in 1947 and, yes, I also found that by putting it under the covers it not only kept a guy warm on a cold winter night but also you could listen with the volume all the way down. Seems like all the "good" stuff was after 9:30 PM when a guy was supposed to be asleep. KWK had Boston Blackie, The Advenger, I Love a Mystery, boy were they neat. Then too you could catch the last period of the St. Louis Flyers hockey game or the last half of the St. Louis Bombers basketball game from the Arena. Gone from St. Louis are the Flyers, Bombers, the Arena, KWK and for that matter, this writer. Memories are ours, unchanged forever. Wasn't it neat the light generated by the small #47 pilot lamp bulb when you had |