RADIO WAVES
Minnesota
The first station I remember was WDGY which my mother favored. In 1955 I heard Bill Haley and Elvis. The best DJ was Bill Diehl who would read my dedications on Saturday night.
It was from KDWB with its jingle: “63 That’s Easy To Remember”, that I heard the Beatles. Both stations ran Top 40 formats. I got their weekly charts which included lyrics on reverse side.
Everyone in the Twin Cities listened to WCCO which was a talk/news station with some MOR songs thrown in. On snowy winter mornings you would wait to find out if your school had closed for the day. It also broadcasted the Twins baseball games, the Vikings and Gophers football games and the Gophers basketball games.
At my grandparents’ farm we would listen to rural news, polka songs and
The Lone Ranger.
In 1975 we lived in rural Dawson and got an ear full of Country music on KDMA. Local news and crop reports and painful interviews.
 At the pump:
$2/litre
$7.70/gal |
It took me seven years to do the A-Z MalleyGrams. In some cases I had to leave things out due to space restrictions. I also reckon I have accumulated a few more items during that time. So I bring you R 2.0
The original "R" has been updated read it
RONETTES -  They arrived at the Holiday Inn where I worked in a pink Cadillac driven by Phil Spector. I was a bellman so I brought food and drink to their rooms and was able to see the diminutive ladies without their makeup and beehive hairdos.
RECORD CENTER - While at university I had a job at Honeywell to store and retrieve documents. This was at the corporate headquarters and we held every piece of paper from around the world. These were stored in folders put into boxes and the boxes were stored on shelves that went up to the ceiling. Got great exercise hefting the heavy boxes. We also kept millions of computer punch cards (on palettes) and printouts that were too big for the boxes.
RADIOS - First memory (1955) would be the plastic one, that ran on tubes, we had in our kitchen. In 1962 my father gave my sister a transistor radio and that was like a miracle. I enjoyed blasting my convertible’s radio as I tooled around. Bought my first tuner-amp in Fiji and hooked it up to monster speakers. Sometime in the late 70’s FM brought great quality to the sound. Bought a boom box for David in 1985. The Internet has changed the way we listen, every station has an app, but I still use radios.
ROTORUA -  For Christmas we drove for an hour to get junk food at Carl Jr’s and Dunkin’ Donuts (closest ones to us). We ate our burgers on the shore of the lake. Then we played a round of mini golf on a course that featured live rabbits and birds. I had three hole in ones (or holes in one).
RANGIORA - This town of 18,000 is 20 minutes north of Christchurch and where David ended up when he returned from Minnesota in 2013. It was damaged during the 2011 earthquake and has been rebuilding since. It is on the Canterbury Plain at the mouth of the Waimakariri River. Pacific ocean on one side and mountains on the other. |
Video Killed the Radio Star (Buggles) - Radio GaGa (Queen) - You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio (Joni Mitchell)
Mexican Radio (Wall of Voo Doo) - Turn Your Radio On (Ray Stevens)
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| RADIO II
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Malley Muses
...Joshua 7.6 |
In the 70’s Fiji Radio was stuck in the past with announcers who tried to sound BBC. It broadcast for a few hours, several times a day. And at times it was in Fijian or Hindi. There was a 1940’s detective serial made in Australia trying to sound American. My favourite were all of the old British radio comedy shows.
When we move to Auckland I listened to Radio i which at that time played oldies. I befriended a DJ, Paul Mitchell, who gave us a tour of the station and he would let me borrow records which I taped. The best station back then was
Radio Hauraki which played rock. I set up a lunch time radio station at the school and we had Hauraki DJs come out to talk about radio as a career. The highlight being NZ’s best DJ, Blackie, taking over one of our broadcasts. |
“And Joshua rent his clothes...”
Why did Joshua rent his clothes, couldn't he afford to buy some?
Or was he off to a fancy do.
I wonder how many shekels a toga went for. |
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