Radio Kill

HERE'S A STORY of how a small radio ruined some Hasidic guy's marriage and completely shattered his faith:

“Were you listening to the radio last night?” Gitty asked the next morning while flipping over a slice of French toast in the frying pan. I stood there, dumbfounded at her intuition and resentful of her demand for accountability. I tried to deny it, but she wasn’t fooled. “You promised years ago you’d disable it,” she said with chilly nonchalance. Then she added, “It starts with radio, and the next thing you know, you’re eating pig and driving on the Sabbath.” I thought she was being dramatic, but still, I gave her my halfhearted assurance that now, finally, I would disable it.

But I had no intention of doing so.

My own relationship with my first radio was much more pleasant, thankfully:

But the day got even better, when in a spur-of-the-moment "let's bond together" moment he reached out and grabbed a radio and bought it for me. Awesome. I loved that radio, even christianing it with a GI Joe sticker on top. I made it through a few years of the stupid Q94 morning zoo and all those early 80's hits, holding up my tape recorder to the speaker and patiently waiting for one of my new cuts to come on so I could record it, and many mornings tuned to WRAR, either calling in to answer the morning quiz or breathlessly praying that school was cancelled for the day thanks to snow (3 flakes would paralyze our county, which drove my mother bananas, her coming from Lowell where apparently the snow could reach 60 feet high and they'd still go to school.) But the real prize came when I found Extra 104 up in DC, and the world of 50/60s music was opened to me in one fell swoop. I was astounded; from the small, black box next to my bed came Wipeout! and Stand by Me and Have I The Right, one after another. I bonded with friends over our love of "real" rock and roll, and stayed up as late as possible soaking it in. All that stuff sounded better when it was dark anyways. I'm not saying I woulda never found this music had my Grandpa not bought me that radio in my Playboy haze, but I'll always feel that connection with him every time it's late at night and Just My imagination comes on the radio.