A Voice from the Past

My grandfather’s old radio had always fascinated me when I went to visit him when I was a child. When I stayed with him and my grandmother, the two of us would do ‘man’s work’ there, digging up the small stream that ran from the pond. We would also pile up fallen branches in the wooded area beside the house and light them on fire which we would watch carefully as if to protect the forest from a sudden, unexpected spread into the trees themselves, something that never even came close to happening. But this did not deter our vigilance.

When we were inside the house and he was busy on his own, I would look at the old wooden radio, which stood between about three or four feet tall from the floor to its rounded top, and imagine that if I turned it on (which I never did), it would play music and comedy routines from half a century ago. I’d think of radio shows that eventually became television shows that I really liked. In my mind I would conjure up a familiar voice of one of my favourite television shows that I watched with my grandfather: Amos and Andy, with those Black Harlem voices, one saying. “Hellooo dare Sapphire”, and similar phrases that I memorized. My grandfather had told me that the series had begun as a radio show in 1928, long before it appeared on television. I, of course, imagined that it I turned the radio on, it would play the radio version. 

When my grandfather died, my father took over ownership of the farm, the house, and everything in it. He didn’t live there. He would just keep it in the family, occasionally checking on the place for break-ins. Sometimes I would go on my own to revisit the place, to relive my memories of spending time with my grandfather. I would stare at the radio, conjuring up sounds, like I had done as a child, of it playing programs and music from long ago. I didn’t want to spoil the moment by turning the radio on, only for it to play modern programs and music, probably with raspy voices a function of the radio’s great age.

When my father told me that he was going to sell the place, I decided to make one last trip to that magic location of my childhood days. Inside the house, which was not locked anymore, I took two treasured objects with me. One was the picture of my great uncle who died in World War I, which was my original intent. The second was, of course, the radio. I decided to do that when I saw it once again, and relived my fantasy of it playing music and comedy shows that my grandfather had listened to when he was a lot younger than I had ever known him to be.  

The old radio was quite heavy, and it took a while for me to carry and drag it into my car without dropping it or making it fall. Fortunately, my wife had heard of what I had thought of the old radio when I was a boy, and she graciously said that I could put it in the back room where our big screen television was, as long as I cleaned all the dirt and dust off of it. She had accompanied me on one of my trips to the old place, and had admired the regal (her word) appearance of the radio. It was well-constructed and still looked good to me.

One Night the Silence is Broken

     A couple of nights later I woke up in the middle of the night. I could have sworn that I heard a voice speaking from another room. To me the voice was saying something like, “You know that you want to, don’t you?”

           I crept out of bed as quietly as I could, trying not to disturb my wife from her apparently peaceful sleep. I quickly put on a pair of pants. I sleep in just my underwear, but I don’t walk around the house like that. I headed over to the back room, thinking, that the voice came from there. I picked up a potential weapon, a small chair, just in case there was an intruder.

           The lights were out in the back room, so I flicked the main switch quickly. To my relief there was no one there. My peace of mind lasted only a few seconds. I felt compelled to turn the radio on. This had to be the time.

           What happened was both a surprise and something of an expectation. There was the Amos and Andy show playing on the radio.  The voices were a little different than I remembered them from my childhood, not as Harlem as they used to be. 

           Then I heard a voice coming from the radio, that almost made me stop breathing. “Do you know that the voices you are hearing on this show are not the Amos and Andy of the television shows that I used to hear you and your grandfather watch with enjoyment. The actors saying the lines right now through my speakers are not even Black. They are two white guys. It was only when the show entered the television world that Black actors actually played the part”.

           I didn’t challenge what he said. After all he (the radio had a man’s voice) was a radio who played the shows.

           “I have to thank you for rescuing me. I knew that your father would not. Now I know you have a couple of questions that you are dying to ask me. I will answer the first one right now. My maker was a genius, decades ahead of his time, and even more clever than the AI drudges that are all the rage right now. He found a way to program his mind into my wiring. We became two creatures with one mind.

           And speaking of minds, I have something of an ability to read minds. I knew that you had the wonderful thought that I could play old shows. My master told me how I could do that, adjusting my wiring to make it possible. I hoped that you would turn me on so that your hunch would prove real, and not just fantasy. 

           What do you want to hear now? I remember that you liked Jack Benny. I have quite few of his shows in my electrical storage.”    

           I had no questions to ask him, I would just get buried in details. The big question I had now was whether or not I should tell my wife. I think that I will. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and for delusions that turn out to be truth.