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.
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Peppermint Bark Fudge
4 days ago
It's the Sconnie in you that makes you cry when you hear the "Edmund Fitzgerald."
ReplyDeleteI listen to the Classical Radio/NPR in the car for the most part too. Unless it's some really, really boring baroque/classical symphony or NPR is reporting on the economy, which is also really, really boring.
well i think it interesting that becoming your mom does not bother you. It seems that is does most people, me becoming my mom especially. In fact I fear it. In a very realistic not funny way. but then I am probobly already more like her then I think just because of that fact, because I distinctly remember my mother feeling the same way about her mother. oh no!
ReplyDeleteMe too Thora. I realized that I'm becoming my mom when I was sewing seeds indoors in my recycled containers on the kitchen counter while waiting for my whole wheat bread to rise. The effect would have been complete only if I'd also been wearing a bandanna (or babushka, as she called them) and listening to talk radio. Which I only do in the car. At home I clean to rock and roll (or indie rock, actually) or don't have music on at all for Todd, whose sensory preceptors just can't handle it any more.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record, I've never heard you mom say "gag me with a spoon", just "oh Gag." So you might still be safe.
I listen to NPR in the car too. I used to listen to it at home (or, at work really, it was my background for my home office) when my internet wasn't crapy. Really the only time I listen to "raido" is in the car...it's the only raido I own LOL
ReplyDeleteBut for some reason, listening to NPR makes me feel very chic, and intlectual and urban. And I think I miss spelled intelectual, so, yah.
And guess what I listen to in the car? (I must be becoming Thora). I listen to books on tape. I am a thorough convert and absolutely cannot go anywhere alone in the car without my book on. I virtually never listen to the radio any more at all.
ReplyDeleteAll you Stallicks had me laughing out loud and then I had to read each new comment to John who laughed too. In my head I like talk radio but the few times I put it on Roxy wanted music and she asks in such a cute way and leaves out the "M" that I can't resist. I must be raising me.
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