Open Dialogue

NPR on AM

Today, when asked, "How's your blog coming?" I offered the following topics of blogging for Bob to select:

- Fringe Grammy award winning groups, Riders in the Sky and Brave Combo
- NPR on AM--nostalgia factor
- Hospice

NPR on AM was selected. The other two topics will be covered in future blogs. So, you'll have to wait for your link on how to get a "May The Horse Be With You: Master Yodel" t-shirt offered on the Riders in the Sky (great cowboy music!) website. Okay, I won't make you wait, here it is: http://www.ridersinthesky.com/. Scroll down the page and you'll find it. Their only Iowa performance is this Monday in the northeast corner of Iowa. A 3-hour drive that would be worth it, except I'd need to take time off from work.

I'll make a mention and plug for Brave Combo as well. Great polka music!

On to the topic at hand. I live in Des Moines, Iowa and have two radio station choices to get my daily dose of NPR. One is on the AM frequency, the other on FM. I choose AM. I am old enough to say that "when I was a child, you found NPR on AM radio" and that is the frequency I associate with NPR. FM is just too clear and crisp.

My earliest memories of NPR are from childhood. I frequently heard the familiar jingle to "All Things Considered" coming out of my father's car radio or the radio in his work area in the basement where he built model airplanes. I'm 41 and the jingle has not changed. I appreciate this.

Building model airplanes had been my father's passion (though he would never describe it that way) since he was 15. Though, I don't know when he started listening to NPR. But this is what he had on when he worked on his planes.

My father worked in tool and die in a factory that has long since closed as manufacturing went overseas. The abandoned factory is located on what is now considered "prime lakefront property" north of Chicago.

I have come to realize that my father was unique--being a high school dropout in his trade. It was his hobby that positioned him to move up into being a precision instrument repairman. When his employer balked at his submission for the job (they were looking for someone with an engineering degree), my father said he'd been working on small engines for over 35 years. My father asked that they give him a chance and if it didn't work out, he'd go back to the line. He worked as a precision instrument repairmen until he retired in 1982.

Every Saturday when the weather permitted my father drove to Bong Recreation Area in Wisconsin to fly his model airplanes. As a teenager, I sniggered at the name "Bong Recreation". I digress.

My father was pretty particular about his model airplanes. He belonged to The Society of Antique Modelers--no modern airplanes. I never really understood all the rules, but they had to do with types of engines and plane designs.

My father also liked cowboy music.

I danced to a lot of polka at the Slovanic Society Hall in Denver as a child (Slovenian heritage on my dad's side, Czech on my mom's. How could I not love polka?)

And we utilized the services of Hospice of Central Iowa for him.

He would be 84 years old if still alive.

I miss him a lot.

posted by Susan @ 5:15 PM