There are 5 articles on this title. You are reading the article ranked and rated #5 by Helium's members.
As a child some sixty years ago,living in rural north Alabama, radio was our window to the world. If I completed my homework and did my chores, I was allowed to listen to the radio until supper time.
I got off the school bus a short distance from the house and ran as fast as I could home and changed clothes. School clothes were hung up to be worn again the next day and I put on my everyday play clothes and my old shoes. My younger brother and I got our bucket and ran across the dirt road in front of the house into the woods. We looked under the oak trees for acorns and picked up a bucket full. These were carried to the hog lot and fed to the pigs. Next, we dipped up a large dipper of scratch feed (a mixture of wheat, barley and cracked corn) to scatter on the ground to feed the chickens and ducks. While the birds were feeding, we gathered the eggs from their nest in the chicken house. The chickens only roosted in the house and laid their eggs in the nest boxes and roamed all over the yard during the day. Dad had bought some guinea hens several years before, but they went wild and lived in the woods for years, eventually numbering over fifty birds.
Our most difficult job was cleaning the watering troughs of the chickens and rabbits and drawing water from the well to water chickens, ducks, rabbits, hogs and two cows and four goats. When we finished watering livestock, we drew water for the house. Dad fed the large animals and milked the cows and goats when he got home from work.
We always had time to play a game of cowboys or cars before mother called us to come in for supper. We nearly always eat early and as mother did the dishes, we sat at the table and did our homework. When this was finally done, we were allowed to listen to the radio. I was thrilled by the adventures of the Lone Ranger, Tennessee Jed, Sky King, The Shadow, The Creaking Door, Jack Armstrong and The FBI and many others.
If I was really good and allowed to stay up late, like 8:00 or 9:00 o'clock, I could listen to The Fat Man, Fibber McGee and Molly, Judy Canova, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy and so many more.
My folks had a state of the art radio. It was a console Philco with record changer, short wave with police bands. It also had the Philco logo over a round hole about six or seven inches in diameter. This feature according to my mother was a space to insert a television screen should such a miracle ever be available after the war was won.
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