Edenville Owls

I had a small brown GE radio in my bedroom and listened to it nearly every night. I listened to boxing from Madison Square Garden with Don Dunphy describing the fight. The ring announcer was Harry Ballough... The Fitch Band Wagon, with Dick Powell... “Don’t dispair, use your head, save your hair, use Fitch Shampoo.”... The Manhattan Merry Go Round, where I imagined myself actually going to the impossibly sophisticated clubs in Manhattan... Lux Radio Theater (Lux Presents Hollywood, with your host, Cecil B. DeMille)... And always the commercials: Get Wildwood Cream Oil, Charlie, start using it today... Ipana for the smile of beauty, Sal Hepatica for the smile of health... Serutan spelled backward in Nature’s... more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette... On Boston radio there was a fifteen-minute show at noon that an announcer would introduce every day by saying, “Sit back, relax, and listen to Bing Sing.”... like everybody else, I loved Bing Crosby... On network there was The Jack Benny Program with Mary Livingston, Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Rochester, and “yours truly, Don Wilson.” It was originally sponsored by Jell-O (J-E-L–L-O), and later by Lucky Strikes (LS/MFT). Jack had a pet polar bear named Carmichael, who he kept in the cellar... For adventure the afternoon programs were good — Jack Armstrong, Don Winslow of the Navy, Hop Harrigan... Afternoons I would listen to ball games, the Red Sox and the Braves... When a team was out of town there would be telegraph re-creations with Jim Britt or Tom Hussy reading the play-by-play off a telegraph setup and simulating a real play-by-play... For more grown-up listeners Big Town was good, Steve Wilson of the illustrated press and his girlfriend Lorelei Kilbourn: “Freedom of the press,” Steve would say at the start of every program, “is a flaming sword, use it wisely, hold it high, guard it well.” And “Mister District Attorney,” “I Love a Mystery” Jack, Doc and Reggie always on some lost plateau somewhere.