Dreams Of Mom

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Last night/this morning was very full of dreams. All of them have been lost to dreamland except one. I dreamt I saw my mother. We hugged and she talked to me. When I have a dream about one or both of my parents, they never speak; well, until now. Oh, both of my parents are long gone.

I have a theory why I dreamt about my mother and why she spoke to me, The Odd Couple. No, that’s not a description of my wonderful wife and me; only I’m odd. Yesterday I discovered that Hulu offers a number of episodes of The Odd Couple TV show that starred Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

The second one I watched is one of my favorites and I think is Dr. Zal’s absolute favorite. It’s the one where Felix and Oscar end up on the game show Password.

Betty White, widow of the late Allen Ludden who was the host of Password, appeared in the episode (as did Ludden, of course). I have always thought that my mother bore a physical resemblance to her. In addition, they were born in the same year. I am fairly certain that seeing an “analogue” for my mother speak is what triggered the dream.

Besides Dr. Zal, are any of you fans of The Odd Couple?

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Believe it or not, today is World Radio Day. Although this proportion varies by age, the majority of people (about 54%) only listen to radio while in their vehicle. Even in this day and age of satellite radio and radio “streaming,” most people–about 65%–still listen to AM/FM while in their cars/trucks.

I worked in radio, both as a host and “behind” the microphone, and I loved it. For a long time, I thought that would be my career and the way I could be involved in sports. Of course, I have a face made for radio.

While working as an Economist/Data Analyst for a small business that provided assistance to companies in arbitration/litigation, I was still looking for full-time radio jobs. A small radio station in Georgia offered me the position as their Sports Director without ever meeting me. When they told me the starting salary–which was less than half of what I was earning–even given the difference in cost of living, there was just no way I could take the job. That’s when I realized that radio would probably not be a way to really make a living.

It is not possible to state with certainty which company produced the first car radio. The first “mass-market” car radio was probably produced by Galvin Manufacturing Corporation–which was later re-named Motorola–in 1930. Given the first commercial radio broadcasts happened in the US in 1920, I think that’s actually fairly late to the game.

FM radio units for cars were invented by a German company, Blaupunkt, in 1952. Fully transistorized radios did not appear en masse until the early 1960s. Before transistors, car radios (like all radios) were powered by vacuum tubes. While all such tubes grow hot with use, the radio in your house was not subject to additional heat from a car engine or to road vibrations. Those older car radios failed often.

 

See the source image

 

That’s a Motorola car radio from the 1960s. Note how “All Transistor” is prominently displayed.

What are your listening habits while driving? We have satellite radio in all three vehicles, but when I’m in the Z06 by myself almost all of my “entertainment” is from listening to the songs on my iPhone via Bluetooth.

 

#DreamsOfMom

#TheOddCouple

#WorldRadioDay

#CarRadios

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Published by rulesoflogic

Empiricism over ideology!

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13 thoughts on “Dreams Of Mom”

  1. Two schools of thought. Either your mind is fulfilling the fantasy of your mother communicating with you, or she really is communicating with you from the great beyond. I have had my mother in dreams as well. I choose to believe the latter.

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  2. I am hooked on Sirius XM, so is my wife. We have it in all of our vehicles, and we stream it in the house. I am currently listening to “70s on 7”. She likes “60s on 6”. In the car, though, I usually listen to “Yacht Rock Radio” or “Prime Country” depending on my mood. My favorite program is Casey Kasem’s weekly top 40 roundup that plays on the weekends on “70s on 7”.

    Regarding the radios, in my 20’s, I worked in a TV-Radio shop. I spent many an hour twisted underneath a dashboard pulling a radio and putting it back after I repaired it… or I was installing one of those “new-fangled” transistor jobs from Motorola.

    Those old tube car radios were powered by a system that generated high voltage for the tubes with the use of a vibrator, a crude tool that converted DC to AC so that a transformer could raise the voltage from the 6 or 12-volt car battery to the 150 or so volts needed to run the anodes of the vacuum tubes. Those vibrators were a major failure point.

    These days, older folks shun playing the radio without the engine running because they learned how quickly a radio discharged the battery. Those old radios drew a lot of energy and would quickly deplete the car’s battery. Today’s radios in comparison hardly draw any power at all.

    That’s my car radio electronics lesson for the day. >grin<

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    1. Thanks for sharing, JS, and very informative. I remember being told by my father, an automobile mechanic, not to leave the radio on with the engine not running.

      We do take electronic “entertainment” for granted no matter where we use it, IMO.

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  3. My listening habits depend on the situation. If I’m in a major metro area, I try to find an AM station that has frequent traffic reports. However it’s slowly being replaced by some states “511” app that shows traffic back ups, and by my GPS which will do the same to an extent. As for music, either bluetooth from my phone using my playlists or Pandora and using Sirius in a couple of my vehicles for a couple of my favorite genres (bluegrass and Outlaw country being the top two).

    I have been downloading my vinyl collection, almost 1,000 albums, onto thumb drives. I need to find a player that is bluetooth so I can listen to them while driving.

    And in a couple of my older vehicles the only thing I listen to is the sounds of the car.

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    1. Thanks, DDM. I suspect your situation is different than most due to your extensive traveling for work and that being usually on the road.

      While writing my third book–around 2000–I became obsessed with making digital copies of my vinyl. I had a nice turntable, but how to get that music to my computer? In a day or so I jerry-rigged my turntable to a pre-amp, connected that to the sound card in my computer and downloaded free software to record and to edit the music. The vinyl-to-digital devices that exist today were nowhere to be found then. My setup worked; I cannot describe how happy I was after recording a few songs.

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    2. DDM, how do you play your vinyl to download it to digital? I have several vinyl albums I would like to digitize.

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      1. I had talked to a musician (plays actual instruments musician) friend about it. He recommended using a turntable with a USB port to connect to a computer. I went with this model on his advice;

        https://www.turntablelab.com/products/pro-ject-debut-iii-recordmaster-usb-turntable-om10-black?aff=56059

        Then you need software. I use this one

        https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/VinylStudio/home.aspx

        I then took an old computer I had and installed a new hard drive and connected an external hard drive with a LOT of memory.

        In your situation this is probably more of an investment than you want to spend if it’s only a few albums you want to digitize Also, it’s rather time consuming.

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  4. On the Odd Couple, I prefer the movie rather than the TV show version. My favorite line from the movies is when Oscar is arguing with Felix about the little notes Felix leaves on Oscar’s pillow and he says: “It took me a while to figure out that FU meant Felix Unger.”

    My car radio listening amounts to both the AM and FM bands. AM for the talk radio shows and FM for the music mostly classic rock and Western. In the garage I listen to CDs on the stereo mostly classic surf rock, Dick Dale, The Ventures, The Astronauts, etc. I do have ripped CDs of my daughter’s Garth Brooks albums. I also have some classical music mostly Tchaikovsky and his Little Russian Symphony. I also have the only CD of the music score from the movie The Magnificent Seven. It was recorded by the Phoenix Symphony.

    I have found a radio for my 1948 Ford F-1 that fits in the original location without cutting the dash. It is a modern IC chip radio and includes Bluetooth and takes up a whole lot less space under the dash than the original tube radio.

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  5. I remain a radio listener in the car.
    Most often in my daily driver I listen to AM 680News which is a Toronto station. I tend to tune it out though as just noise, as they repeat the news cycle every 1/2 hour. I sometimes switch to FM for Q107, along time leading Toronto classic rock station. I tire of it easily though, as it doesn’t take long before I recognize I’ve heard some songs a couple times over a few days. I still maintain a CD collection and will sometimes throw 6 or 7 in the car for use over a week or so.
    The Grand Prix has a period correct Audiovox AM/FM. I preset my 680 and Q107, but most often I use an FM transmitter and my old iPhone 3. I’ve loaded about 300 songs on it and I just let it shuffle. I might be using 1/8 of the space on it, so at some point I’m sure I’ll load more of my library onto it.

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    1. Many thanks, Mark.

      We have Sirius/XM and listen to Sixties on 6 when we’re driving together. I notice the same thing about their catalog: it’s not very extensive and if you listen for more than a half hour you’ll probably hear at least one song you heard the last time you listened.

      My wonderful wife and I had a great time at the Corvette Museum as part of the Corvette Caravan in 2019. Unfortunately, the assembly plant tour did not occur as the plant was closed for the changeover to the C8. I think I’m just too old to drive 1,600 miles in a week, though. From Arizona, the drive would be much farther, of course.

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