Old Time Radio

I listen to old time radio. They had a show on about a woman being chased through a ravine. The frogs were loud and prominent. I can't remember the last time I heard frogs that loud. I have heard frogs that loud before. Just, not in a long time. Oh, she made it home, found the bad man in her home and killed him with the sewing scissors. A different time.

Another old radio show was about a doctor who was too sick to help all the dying people around him. He sent his dog to the outpost with some people headed there. They put the cure on the dog and he made it back to save the day. He made it back in the nick of time. The guy doing the dog sounds was pretty good. So cheesy. Still brought a tear to my eye.

One of the Loan Ranger episodes has a climax of the Lone Ranger preventing a crowd of people from saving miners who are about to drown in a collapsed mine until they confes and let the rightful owner out of the mine with them. Bit harsh. A different time.

Some of the radio shows have advertisements for war bonds. They talk about the “Nazi menace”. They put down socialism. They pick a side. That sounds so strange to hear someone officially and deliberately take a side rather than try to hide it in the choice of story or tone of reporting.

There is simply so much offered in these old radio stories. The list of people in these shows reads as a list of 40's and 50's movie stars. They used to take radio shows very seriously before TV. It strikes me that either the really bad stuff has withered and blown away, or the era produced a great deal of entertaining and thoughtful prose. Even with censorship, even with prejudiced, even with ajendas, the stories, content and the telling are good.