Hearing Voices

I will spare you the specifics of how the side effects of radiation therapy for my prostate cancer are playing havoc with my body. Instead, I will tell you about my journey to and from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

My drive to radiation treatments are about 45 minutes or so. Recently, the winter weather has kicked into top gear, so I’ve had to miss a few appointments. These simply get tacked on, but since I am now down to the last four treatments, I REALLY hate to miss one. But as the old margarine ad campaign warned, “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.”

Since I have a nice, long trip, I looked for something other than music to fill that time. That something is Radio Classics on Sirius/XM. They play old radio shows dating from the 1930s until their fall from favor in the early 1960s. TV ruled the roost then, and folks no longer needed to use their imaginations to enjoy mysteries, horror stories, westerns, comedies, adventures… well, you get the idea.

Radio has played a significant role in my life since I got my first transistor radio for Christmas when I was seven or eight years old. I spent many nights under the covers with an earphone plugged into one ear as I explored the AM bands. Picking up stations form Missouri, Illinois and Iowa was pretty exciting for a kid from West Virginia. You could easily hear the clear channel AM stations (not to be confused with the ineptly named Clear Channel Media which ironically turned into iHeart Radio.)  You could also hear lots of lower powered stations from all over the USA, Mexico and Canada with just a little AM radio.

I was born after the glory days of radio shows. For a short time in the mid to late 1970s, CBS aired a mystery theater radio program on some radio affiliates. I enjoyed listening to these when I was home, which wasn’t too often.

Many years later, I ran across an online article about old time radio shows being available on Internet Archive. They have a lot of them! Many free radio shows can be found at https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

I gravitated towards the horror/suspense genre, enjoying many episodes of shows such as “Lights Out!” and “Suspense.” I burned many MP3 episode files onto a CD, and my wife and I listened to them in the dark, much like many others had done when these creepy shows first aired.

I can hear an entire episode of a radio show on my way to Fort Wayne, and a different one on the return trip. While I hear a variety of different shows, I seem to prefer the mysteries and detective stories. “Escape,” “The Whistler,” “Let George Do It,” “Sherlock Holmes,” and “The Falcon” are some good ones. Vincent Price as Simon Templar in "The Saint" is outstanding. "The Shadow" is a famous one, and for good reason. The Shadow has the power to make himself unseen to specific evildoers and then mess with their heads.

“Escape” and “The Whistler” also have some horror themed episodes. “The Hermit’s Cave” is another good source of supernatural and mystery episodes. I have yet to hear a "Lights Out" episode on Radio Classics, though the sci-fi series " X Minus One" episodes play occasionally and is a lot of fun to listen to.

“Gunsmoke” episodes play a lot on Sirius/XM, and while I’m not a huge fan of westerns, some of these are pretty good. Others are not. One really odd western is “Frontier Gentleman,” a short-lived series about a reporter for the London Times writing about his experiences in the American Old West. No, it is not a comedy. Well, it wasn't intended to be.

“Fibber McGee and Molly” is my favorite comedy show. McGee’s banter and snappy one-liners are outstanding. “Our Miss Brooks” is another favorite. I heard a Christmastime episode around the holidays that revolved around returned gifts. I literally laughed out loud many times during that episode!

We are bombarded with movies and TV shows featuring many computer-generated visual effects and characters. We have come to expect sensory overload at the movies. The old time radio shows allow me to use my mind’s eye to enjoy a tale told in less than half an hour. The prime benefit of Radio Classics on Sirius/XM is that I no longer dread the drive to radiation treatments. In fact, I almost look forward to it. Almost.  

Trivial Pursuits

It doesn’t take much to make me happy nowadays.

Last night, my wife and I went to a local tavern for trivia night. With my radiation/holiday depression, going anywhere at all for some recreation was a blessed relief. As they say in the credit card TV ad world, spending time with good friends was priceless.

The food at this bar is pretty good. We had a decent dinner of sandwiches and fries. I enjoyed a patty melt, which is a treat I haven’t had in a long time. My wife liked her fish sandwich. The fries were good. I had unsweetened iced tea. Regardless of the food and drink, the company was excellent.

Our trivia team consisted of my wife and I; a dear friend from my old teaching gig and her bright and entertaining retired teacher husband; and a retired math teacher from our same school who was currently pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. What a diverse group!

The questions played to our skill sets. Everyone contributed to our success last night. It was pure trivia magic!

How successful were we? Well, not to brag or anything, but WE WON!  Hamster Riot was the trivia champ at the bar last night, the best and brightest out of 16+ teams. Some trivia teams had a dozen players. Some teams were in all reality just drinking teams with a trivia problem. Regardless, when the smoke cleared, Hamster Riot was the last team standing. We beat out teams that competed EVERY Thursday night. This was a real accomplishment.

You might ask yourself - why were we called Hamster Riot? What’s in a name? Compared to some of the suggestive or even downright obscene team names, Hamster Riot was definitely one of the few names that were G-rated. Before I went to sleep the night before our trivia night, I thought about what two words would make absolutely no sense, and might just sound like a cool name for a pop/rock band. Hamster Riot just jumped out at me like a startled… hamster!

I once bowled for a team called Five Yards West. Most of the teams we bowled against asked about the origins of that name. Five yards west of what? Are you guys a country band? Sometimes the real significance is that the name has absolutely no significance at all.  

Anyway, back to the bar. Our prize for winning trivia night at this tavern was a $15 gift certificate. We will use it the next time we go to trivia night. Maybe we can buy appetizers with it, or perhaps a pitcher of beer. Regardless, we earned it and we will enjoy it. Boo-yah!

For me, the real reward was going out and having fun. It seems like it has been forever since that last happened. My wife and I sequestered ourselves over Christmas. It was a good time for both of us to catch up on rest.

But last night, we enjoyed the pleasant distraction from our regular routines that time spent with friends at a trivia contest at a little bar and grill in a tiny Northwest Ohio town offered.

Did we really do anything spectacular last night? No. We were just a group of friends out for some fun, and for me THAT was truly therapeutic.