Have you ever heard the phrase:
THE GOOD OLD DAYS?
Well, since I can't sleep tonight - you're gonna hear my version of what it means.
So, just suck it up and deal.
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______Once Upon a Time there was RADIO.
Every home had a radio.
Radios were a BIG piece of furniture not as big as a refrigerator, but taller than your little brother, Timmy.
1930s
The golden age of radio — the period when radio reached its peak popularity with general audiences — was in the 1930s and 1940s. Strangely, part of this period was during the great depression in North America when people were doing without most luxuries, and even a few seeming necessities.
Radio was a SHARED EXPERIENCE.
Cultures which didn't like each other - without realizing it - shared the same love of the same radio dramas.
THE SHADOW
DICK TRACY
GANG BUSTERS
AMOS n' ANDY
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE
THE LONE RANGER
And on and on and on ...
Think about that for a second, will you?
Even people who hated each other sat down at the same time
in front of a radio and listened "together" and laughed or cried about the same thing.
A cultural miracle.
People shared the SAME source: Radio.
A window to the world.
"Who cares?"
"So what?"
You don't want to miss my point: Radio was the glue which bound people together culturally when they didn't even know or like each other.
Radio was imagination.
A radio play took place inside your mind.
The vividness was better than movies. Don't laugh. It's true.
We all sang the same songs.
We all laughed at the same (clean) jokes.
Radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, talent shows, daytime and evening variety hours, situation comedies, play-by-play sports, children's shows, cooking shows, and more.
During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's Monitor continued such remotes well into the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America.
The Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him.
At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro.
Popular songwriters such as George Gershwin were also featured on radio. (Gershwin, in addition to frequent appearances as a guest, also had his own program in 1934.) The New York Philharmonic also had weekly concerts on radio.
CULTURE was being formed and people glued together in their hearts and souls.
That's what was "GOOD" about the Good Old Days.
As a boy growing up in the 1950's, I listened with my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and my mother ...SHARING
their tastes in music, humor, and a sense of what was fun.
Today (need I remind you?) families are in individual bubbles, sealed off from each other with separate tastes, ideas, and living in different worlds.
The 30s 40s 50s were NOT a Golden Age for ethnic groups or women. I'm not saying that.
God no. I'm just focusing on what is called an ETHOS. (Look up the word).
The absence of that ethos has made a big difference in our Society.
That's my point.
There shall be no new Good Old Days because of its absence.
And that, my friends, is why we seem to be living in THE BAD OLD DAYS.
We don't share the same collective tastes around a central space at the same time.
We aren't together because we aren't together.
And it will prove to be our undoing as a species.
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