radio

My dad, sister Allyson, her friend Emily and I were driving through sultry St. George when "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang came in the radio. I rolled down my window and turned up the volume. Dad and I sang it out and proud as we danced in the front seats. Ally and Emily shot us strange glances from the back as they giggled. We didn't stop until the song was over. Then a Hall & Oates song came on that I didn't know came on and dad took the solo. 

I have so many memories with radios.

I remember mom driving me to school listening to all the new pop hits on 94.9 ZHT. One night she was dropping me off at a friend's house for night games. On the drive there, she started to blast Mambo #5. 

"Mom, turn down the music. It's giving me a headache." 

"I'm going to remind you of this when you blast your own music," she said as she turned down the radio. "You're going to do the same thing in a few years."

"No I'm not!" I said, but I did. 

When I could drive, I had a car with a tape deck in a decade of CDs. At leas I had a radio. I would switch between 97.7 and 96.7, both classic rock stations. I could easily switch from one to another without running into any of the Country stations that was customary in Castle Dale. 

Those stations also remind me of long hot summer days re-shingling a house with Chris and Phil Outz. Chris was a few years older than me and had a full beard. Phil, his dad, had long curly hair and facial hair trimmed in Bob Ross Happy Tree fashion. I thought that any moment he would invite me to take out my oil paints and paint along at home as we listened to "Foreplay" by Boston, "Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo and my favorite "Centerfold" by J. Geils Band. I didn't know what a centerfold was until I was belting the chorus in the shower and my dad sat me down to discuss it when I got out. 

I worked washing cars in the mornings before college classes last year. When I wasn't listing to the Coffee House XM 32 station, I was listening to the Morning Brew on Power 91 FM. It was on okay show that no one else listened to, so I won most of the call-in prizes for two semesters. I got so many free tickets to see movies at the discount theater. 

The radio is dying, but I don't stop listening. I'll be scanning stations until all there is left is static.