Tuning in to the miracle of radio

At dusk a few nights ago, a thunk at the window eighteen inches from my head took me by surprise. A bird thought he could fly through my sunroom in back to the yard in front of the house, clearly not understanding the concept of glass. We have so much in common, that bird and I. Heck, I’ve never understood radio waves, like the ones called FM (frequency modulation) currently bringing a jazz station out of Cedar Rapids to the same room the bird tried to enter. Same with AM (amplitude modulation). Growing up in Iowa, I thought it a miracle that my little handheld transistor radio could pull in rock 'n' roll stations out of Chicago, like WLS and WCFL.

Later on, when I hosted my own late-night radio show, I did my best to sound like Clyde Clifford, a disc jockey on KAAY AM out of Little Rock, Arkansas, who introduced many of us to what was termed ‘underground’ music. There was nothing underground about it, as Clifford simply played long story songs by the likes of Jaime Brockett and Arlo Guthrie, songs that wouldn’t ordinarily receive airplay. Again, a kid in Iowa was listening to a radio station 700 miles away. The science of it is mind-boggling, at least to this old guy.

Saturday I spent a number of hours on my tractor, but only after having first removed a mouse from the engine compartment. Two hours into the cutting in the hollow, a second mouse dropped to the platform upon which my left foot rested. I tried to reason with her, then used my hand to push her onto the grass. She seemed a little stunned (no more than I), but she scampered off.

Wearing earplugs while the cutter whirred behind me, I found myself singing two of my favorite tunes, “Can We Still Be Friends?” by Todd Rundgren and “We Just Disagree” by Dave Mason. Not sure why those songs were in my head, and years of therapy likely wouldn’t succeed in explaining it. Not that it matters. I think a part of me still wants to be a young man, maybe a busker on Grafton Street in Dublin, specializing in breakup songs before I had to succumb to the heavy responsibility of adulthood. I want to go back to a time before anyone died.

A friend who works in media recently suggested that a podcast with me reading my columns might be kind of fun. I told her that I didn’t really understand the concept, but one of these days she’ll journey out to my quiet corner of the world to attempt some recordings. My speaking voice these days is not one I believe anyone will care to hear, as my tones are more dull than dulcet, an old guy squeaking out short sentences with the breath he has remaining, and I can’t even begin to approximate sonorous, Shakespearean tones. No Richard Burton here … more Liz Taylor after a cigarette and a few drinks.

We are all forced to listen to our own voices, but there are others worth hearing, voices to which we should pay close attention. Not voices on a radio, but voices that have been there all along without the help of airwaves, voices telling us to quit wasting time, voices that quietly suggest we use whatever talent we have to better our world, voices that urge us to believe in magic, and voices that tell us there will be, for most of us, a tomorrow after tomorrow and if we’re really lucky, a few more after that. Oh, the bird that hit my window? He flew off, off toward his own tomorrow.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald has published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here.