From: Lorraine:

Listening was once a developed skill...

Let me take you back to the days of yesteryear, when the only entertainment was radio.

Ours was a domed table model made by Stromberg-Carlson. My mother listened to "Mary Trent, Backstage Wife","Stella Dallas", The Breakfast Club, Ma Perkins, The Road of Life, and The Guiding Light.

"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North America ... and all the ships at sea," said Jimmy Fiddler, punctuating his news flashes with the dit, dit, dit, dot of Morse code. Gabriel Heater, and H.V.Kaltenborn, carefully ennunciating every syllable as they told us what was going on in the world.

We giggled when that miser, Jack Benny went down to his vault, over the moat and past the alligators. "Now cut that out," he'd yell at his wise-cracking chauffeur, Rochester, and his long-suffering girlfriend, Mary. Fred led us down Allen's Alley, where he talked to assorted characters, like Digarow Dell, the friendly undertaker. Two white men in blackface and their friend, the Kingfish, created politically incorrect humor on Amos 'n Andy, which was the longest running show of all time: 1928 to 1960.

"There's always time for Jell-o ... J - E - LL - O"

A stop at "Duffy's Tavern, where the elite meet to eat. Archie speakin' -- Duffy ain't heah," was a must in our house. It pays to be Ignorant, Red Skelton, Eddy Cantor, Milton Berle; all provided laughter.

Mr. Keene cleverly traced all the lost persons. Another crime-fighter clouded men's minds so they couldn't see him. "What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows, ha, ha, ha, ha." I Love a Mystery, Bulldog Drummond, Suspense, Lights Out and Inner Sanctum kept us on the edge of our seats. I can't remember which one had that creaky door.

"Rinso-white ... Rinso-White ...Is Rinso-white as white as a dove? Uh-uh, it's even whiter. You mean just as white as the clouds above? uh-uh, it's even whiter."

"Grand Central Station, where a thousand separate lives meet daily..." was the catalyst for a wide range of stories. What they had in common was that justice and good girls always triumphed. There was lots of radio drama: First Nighter, where the usher took you to your seat just as the curtain was going up ... Kraft Theater, and my Saturday morning favorite, Let's Pretend.

"Hi-Ho Silver! Get'em up Scout." I understand that in Appache, 'Kenosabi' means 'stupid paleface'.And that fellow who was able to jump tall buildings with a single bound. Look ... it's a bird -- it's a plane -- it's Superman! Jack Armstrong was no slouch, either. And we carefully figured out the secret message from Dick Tracy on our decoder rings.

"Have you tried Wheaties? The best breakfast food in the land." Wheaties and Pepsodent were notable sponsors that credit radio with their success.

There were funny ladies, too. Dumb was a prerequisite for comediennes. Jane always fractured adages on "Easy Aces". "And there he was, dead as a doorknob." Dingy Gracey Allen kept George Burns on his toes in a skewed world all her own. Fanny Bryce as Baby Snooks was always confessing "I've been a b-a-a-d girl."

Radio was live, so there were bound to be bloopers. The classic was Harry Von Zell making an introduction: "...the Preident of the United States, Hoobert Heever - er - Heevert Hoober -- I mean, Hovert Haber." The next time you hear a presidential introduction, notice that since Honny Vell Zar made such a mess of it, they say, "The President of the United States." No name.

During one dramatic broadcast, the actor said, "Nurse, a hypodeemic nurdle, please."

Another hapless announcer asked, "Girls, do you wake up feeling lustless - I mean listless?"

Perhaps the most tragic blooper of all time was made by Uncle Don. At the end of his popular children's show -- thinking the mike was off -- he said, "Well, that'll hold the little basterds." Nieces and nephews all over the country futilely twirled the dial from then on looking for Uncle Don.

A pioneer of radio talk shows was a former journalist named Mary Margaret McBride. In her final years, she sat in her home on a mountain, looking out on a spectacular view of the Ashokan Reservoir north of Kingston, New York. She broadcast a daily show from her home, and I interviewed her. We 'youngsters' found her show too saccharine, and I brazenly asked, " Don't you sometimes want to say, Oh, s--t?" She denied ever having such an impulse, but her blue eyes twinkled, and I became a frequent guest in her home.

I also interviewed Howard Koch. His writing credits included "Casablanca" and "War of the Worlds", broadcast one Halloween Eve. Koch said he worked on the script right up until air time, and went home and fell into an exhausted sleep without hearing the program. He knew nothing of the panic that ensued when accounts of the aliens landing went into American living rooms. In the morning, he rose, shaved, dressed, and went to his favorite newsstand. There, on the front page of the newspaper was his script! "I've lost it!" he thought.

A seedy man approached him one day weeks later and said, "You owe me $3.50." Koch had never seen him before, and asked why. "Because when I heard that program, I took the $3.50 I was saving up for a pair of shoes and bought a train ticket for as far as it would take me."

Despite his spectacular successes, Koch's career went downhill. He was blackballed during the McCarthy madness.

Lorraine