This is Thora Shannon on All Music Considered

I'm turning into my Mother.

I remember being a little kid and my Mom would always have BYU Classical Radio on, and I hated it. (To clarify, I did like classical music - I just didn't like driving to it). As the soporific strains poured out of the dashboard, I invariably fell into a light, unrestful sleep. During the winter my coat would still be on, and as the windows magnified the weak Winter Sun I was always too hot, lying their in a Music induced coma, hating sleeping, but unable to muster enough force to stay awake through an entire concerto. Or in the Summer, lulled to sleep by the engines and the music, and then finally at any time of year, waking up at our destination, bleary eyed and bleary brained, with niggling tendrils of unwanted sleep still curling about me.

Or NPR would be on, and as the banner head rift trumpeted out "Bam, bam, bam, bam..." (Hey, you try writing out music, sometime) to All Things Considered I always thought to myself how boring the voices were, and how boring the topics were. Not that I listened closely enough to catch the topic, for the most part.

As an adult while driving in the car I have mostly listened to Country for its revving, car-driving excitement. I also like oldies for the same reason. Plus the decades I grew up listening to as a child - the eighties and nineties. I even went through this stage of trying out an AM station, which without fail played "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" every day around 10:30 am as I drove to work while pregnant with Lydia. And every day without fail, being pregnant, I choked up as the Edmund Fitzgerald, the big ship that was bigger than most, sank with all 29 crew members aboard - after all, this had really happened.

The longer I've been an adult, though, the more these other stations have been passed by, for (you guessed it) OSU's classical radio station with NPR. I love how the songs aren't jangly and short, with changes all the time that just remind me how slowly traffic is moving. I love that the only commercials are delivered in one liners saying who's sponsoring the station. I love the feeling being the songs. And I've never once been tempted to fall into the music induced naps of my youth (thankfully for my fellow Columbus drivers who share my road).

I love it when I have to drive somewhere at four pm - when NPR starts. They have even jazzed up the musical rifts since my childhood (although the head banner rift remains the same.) Marketplace gets me feeling all self righteous and on my soapbox of money consciousness, where I learn about toxic assets and credit card follies. And through NPR I commemorated Buddy Holly's death, various ethnic music trends, and other pop culture moments.

I never turn the radio on at home, but while in the car (when Avram isn't with me - for some reason I feel self conscious listen to the radio with another adult in the car) my station is always on, and is always turned to Classical Radio.

Clearly I am on the high road to being my Mother. Next I'll start saying "Garbage" with a drawn out accent, and phrases like, "Gag me with a spoon." Oh, wait, I already do.