Miscellaneous: Radio Radio

The typical Sunday night malaise – anxiety about the week ahead combined with the sense that you didn’t go for as much gusto as you could have on your days off – had settled over us. As so often happens, the Bob Seger song ‘Still the Same’ came up. This naturally led to ‘Against the Wind’ (“Let the cowboys ride!”) and other tunes by the pride of Michigan.

After Rosemarie went to bed, I put on the headphones and dialed up Seattle’s classic rock station in the vain hope of catching some Seger. When I was in college, my friend’s roommate once vowed not to go to sleep until he heard something by Anne Murray, preferably ‘Snowbird.’ He lasted until the wee hours before finally dozing off unfulfilled. I wasn’t about to go that far, but I had some time to spare.

Ten minutes later, ‘Still the Same’ started. It was uncanny.

I wasn’t ready to turn in, so I spent another half hour flipping between stations. A profile of Cheap Trick was on, and I heard ‘She’s Tight’ for the first time in a decade. It turns out John Tesh has a syndicated radio show, a mix of adult contemporary music and “information for your life” like the importance of eye contact in making a first impression. Thanks, John.

I shut off the radio thinking about the many adolescent nights I’d spent scanning the dial, dreaming up plans for making it big. Some of those plans are starting to pay off, which makes me wonder if I should set aside time every week to listen to whatever is on the air, lost in thought. It couldn’t hurt.