Video killed the radio star.
Those catchy lyrics (from the Buggles’ 1979 hit) have been looping inside my head the past two days.
Ever since water killed my radio.
Read the rest of the story.
Monday night I had a nightmare (heavy-duty, recurring for 45 years). While trying to escape, I flew, while sleeping, like a bat outta hell outta bed and knocked over a vase of flowers on the nightstand.
Water spilled everywhere. Fortunately it narrowly missed the cell phone.
Unfortunately, it pooled onto my clock radio.
It died — coincidentally as I was about to in my nightmare.
Though it still powered on, the front displayed no time, only “id” and the audio was pure buzzy static.
Genuinely sad. I’ve had that RCA clock radio for eons.
We’ve got history — to say the least! It’s moved with me across thousands and thousands of miles, across many state lines, across the years.
In those innumerable relocations– guessestimated 25– that radio’s always the last thing packed.
Pulling its plug signals pulling the plug on the residential space and place of the moment. Likewise, the radio’s among the first to go live in a new space (and thus is always packed into a box or bag easily identified).
Am I dating myself or what?! No millennial super-glued to a cell phone could possibly imagine or comprehend the significance of a clock radio. But here it is.
So when display and audio blipped out late that night, I mournfully set the RCA in the kitchen with a threadbare hope it might dry out and return to life. A day passed. No sign of resurrection.
I nearly took it to the dumpster — ONLY because I’m a passionate, disciplined anti-clutter nazi — but couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Couldn’t quite part with it just yet. Couldn’t say goodbye just now.
So it sat unobtrusively on the microwave — a little longer than my anti-clutter nazi would like — as I undertook the necessary, unwelcomed and sad task of researching a replacement online.
A replacement, I knew, of comparatively cheap quality and none of the charms of my old friend the radio.
Two days later, while this morning’s coffee brews, emerges evidence that Jesus alone wasn’t resurrected.
I plug it in. Expecting still life repeated and sad confirmation that I need to let it go.
Suddenly, the old familiar 12:00 — the default time — flashes in green!!! And the audio {push a button, can it be?!} works!!!
Sprung back to life, as if nothing happened!
Joy! Genuine happiness.
I’d been trying to recall when I bought that radio … where I was living. Spaces and places are my life’s timestamps. I cannot. It was that. long. ago.
So I dated the model online. Made in 1992. That humble RCA radio is some 25 years old!
Turns out this”vintage” unit can even be found on ebay for not a small sum … there’s even a youtube vid!
They don’t make ’em like they used to. How true the adage.
I could not be happier at the RCA’s resurrection!
It is now back in its place, with its time reset, on the nightstand. Next to the desk lamp that I’ve also had for eons. Should you surmise that the Disposable Mindset is not mine, you’d be most correct.
Video may have killed the radio star. But water did not kill my radio.
And because that outstandingly durable and humble unit, with its push buttons and dials — nothing digitized here — deserves air time … sing hello to my regal RCA:
My RCA (model RP-3651B) : Still life 😦
Old-school buttons ‘n’ sliders ‘n’ dials, oh my!
Back home alive and well
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Allelujah, Arizona! 