They say you can't go home again and they're right... but who says you can't go visit?



Tuesday, June 15, 2010

WMDN gone????

Well maybe not, though the stations with those call letters now serves distant relatives near Meridian MS instead of Midlanders. Now it's WMPX 1490 AM / WMRX 97.7 FM, and apparently so since about 1971; wow, for 39 years I never knew it was "gone." I expected to see changes, but... my old radio station?


I used to listen to WMDN on my two-transistor radio; I had no choice, it wouldn't receive anything else. Lightfoot's "Steel Rail Blues" and "Early Morning Rain" (IMHO so much better than the Peter, Paul & Mary version done later), "Listen To The Rhythm Of The Falling Rain," and so much more, first heard on WMDN.


Come to think of it, when President Kennedy was assassinated I was probably the first in Eastlawn Elementary to know something was wrong. Against the rules I had my (new) radio in my desk and sneaked the earplug to my ear while we were working on some classwork. It was strange; the station was playing very doleful dirges. Our teacher was called to the office and came back a few minutes later in tears: "The President's been shot!" I vaguely remember an assembly in the gym and then we were sent home. WMDN was still playing the same music.


And years later, after I built a short-wave radio (Knight-Kit's "Star Roamer" -- how 60s a name was that?) and had broader range, I still listened to WMDN.


Won a contest once: they asked some question and I knew the answer -- rushed home, called in and won. Got a ticket to see "Fantastic Voyage". In Bay City because we had no theaters in Midland. So the whole family got dragged off to this somewhat weird movie.


Didn't expect my favorite programs to still be on the air (oddly then, as now, later on Sunday), though I haven't found a program guide for WMPX. I think WMDN had the "Great Hour of Music" first, or maybe "Hour of Great Music" because even the announcer couldn't decide, but an hour of classical music. This was followed, or preceded, by a program I only remember for its theme, the hymn "How Great Thou Art," which remains a favorite even though it's not in our hymnal.


I still had that little two-transistor radio when we moved to California. Somehow it got lost along the way.

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