Radio-One

The Massachusetts Turnpike is the artery that takes me to Millbury on Route 146 south to I-295 and east to I-95 and into Attleboro weekly to pick up The Berkshire Beacon.

This is about listening to various radio stations, beginning in Lee with 93.7 WZMX Hot 93.7, JD Buck, Nancy Barrow and the pastor on Thursday mornings (on the return trip there is Jenny Boom Boom for music and entertainment), to WBZ 1030 AM for news and traffic headed east. (I monitor WBZ traffic and weather together on the threes headed back home.)

At the split of I-90 and I-84 at Sturbridge, I tune to WBZ and then pick up 92-pro-FM along with JAM’N 94.5 FM, Boston which gets me to the plant in Attleboro.

Music and commentary make the ride enjoyable with some calls from staff and friends.

Yes, one of these days I’ll plug into satellite radio stations thanks to a Christmas present from my wife, Christine.

Radio-Two

Yes, The Beacon advertises locally on the Vox stations in Pittsfield, Great Barrington and North Adams. Don L. Picken, former news director at KMCD-Radio in Fairfield, Iowa, came up with the Woodrow Wilson script. I asked Don, who lives in Molalla, Ore., for his impute. It took him less than 30 minutes to respond.

In the communication business, whether it be radio, television and newspapers, people not only consume music and news, but commentary and the advertisements are read or listened to. Ads are part of the information one gathers as they listen or read.

Without advertisements, we would not know about meetings, gatherings, plays, events and life in general that we all come to rely on daily in our life’s pursuit.

Radio-Three

In the old days of radio, when farmers began to plant their crops, men went to work for 40-60 hours a week in a local factory for a meager paycheck to put food on the table, pay their mortgage and buy with cash the necessities of life.

This is a reflection in time.

News was transmitted by morning and evening newspapers and radio before the days of television.

Winter is coming to a close, winter coats are being discarded and dreams of a new beginning are beginning to take hold, i.e. the family vacation.

Yet, in New England, the one constant phrase: Play Ball.

No matter where one was in New England, it was the old Red Sox network that kept young and old alike informed during the Babe Ruth and Ted Williams eras. It was the voices in the 1950s and ‘60s of Curt Cowdy, Ned Martin and Ken Coleman that helped make the radio listener feel like he was at the ballpark.

During the advent from radio to television, the joke was that one would watch the TV screen and listen to the play by play on the radio.

Deep into the pocket of rural New England, people would religiously tune into the Sox game, sometimes a doubleheader, and share in the peanuts, popcorn and Narragansett beer though a base hit, a double, a home run and a ball that just scaled the wall of no return later known as the Green Monster.

These were the days of radio, audiences on the network and a brief dream of a win, loss and always tomorrow when one read the daily newspapers the day after.

The small weekly tracked the small high school teams as they played neighboring towns and, if lucky, got to go to the regional and/or state playoffs. Now this was big time.

My connection growing up in Melrose was Wilbur Forrester Wood, who grew up in Belmont and was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 1960. He was both a league leading relief pitcher and leading starting pitcher in his days with the Red Sox. He later played for the White Sox in Chicago.

In high school and in the Middlesex League, he was the pitcher to beat. Wilbur compiled a 24-2 record, including four no-hitters in his high-school career, and led his team to the state championship as a junior in 1959.

And so it goes with memories, a radio blast and a newspaper reporter’s recollection of a Greater Boston pitching star that played along the Red Sox network far and wide.

Posted by George C. Jordan III on March 14, 2013. Filed under Editorials,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry