Toronto Mike

My Blue Transistor Radio

gift

In my lifetime I've probably received hundreds of Christmas gifts, but there are a few I remember best.  I never lobbied for an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle so what I got on Christmas morning was always a surprise.  On one particular Christmas in the early to mid-eighties I received a little blue transistor radio.

It was freedom.  The radio would go everywhere I went.  I used to sleep with it.  In the summers, I listened to 1430 CJCL which was carrying Blue Jays games called by Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth.  Other nights I would crawl the dial just to see what I would pick up.  I'd start at one end and slowly make my way to the other side, stopping for a bit whenever I pulled in a station.  I guess it was sort of a low tech scan.  I'd do this for FM and then switch to AM.  I loved that damn radio.

It's a love affair that has continued to this day.  The primary reason I have an iRiver instead of an iPod is because the iRiver has a radio built in.  I want my MP3, but I'm not ready to give up my radio entirely.  In this day of MP3 players and satellite radio there's little room in a kid's life for a transistor radio.  I'm just glad there was room in my life for one that Christmas morning.

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