Acting Citizen: All Night Long Radio

By James Knudsen

“Hello?” I muttered into the telephone receiver. My voice sounded like I had just woken up, because I had. I had just woken up because it was the middle of the night.
    “Could ya turn down the radio?” the voice on the other end implored.
    “Of course.” There was no reply, just click.
    I shuffled my way to the radio, which, to be fair, wasn’t blaring, but it was loud in the quiet of the night, and windows were undoubtedly open. This may not have been the only such call made to the Tulare residence I grew up in, and that eventually became Dad’s empty nest, but it is the only such call I ever fielded.

Radio was a constant presence in the home of Morris Knudsen. Born in 1927, Dad grew up listening to the Golden Era of live radio in the United States. As an undergrad at Cal State Dominguez Hills, working on Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, I queried him about what he would have been listening to in 1937, the year that play is set. “The Green Hornet,” heard nationwide, is the best known that he mentioned.

    But, living in Los Angeles meant he also heard locally produced shows like the “ ‘Whoa Bill’ Club,” sponsored by Bullocks department store. 

    And, while he may not have been a frequent listener, the evangelizing of Aimee Semple McPherson, broadcast on her own radio station from the Angelus Temple, was a show known by every Angeleno.

    McPherson is the inspiration for the character Sister Alice McKeegan, in the HBO series Perry Mason, a Covid-19-must-binge-watch.

Tatiana Maslany as Sister Alice McKeegan,
a preacher and leader of the Radiant Assembly of God

My knowledge of Dad’s radio listening habits has a substantial gap that runs from his high school years to my early childhood. Television arrived in that time frame and my impression is that he always eyed the small-screen medium with suspicion. Unless it was PBS – and not just any PBS. The BBC’s I, Claudius or a Ken Burns documentary were the shows worthy of his time; otherwise he could take it or leave it, and he was content to leave it.
    My first memory of Dad’s radio listening was classical music – the source: “KWSO, Wasco. With the power of a thousand watts.” Let’s put that in perspective. I have friends who had more than 1,000 watts of power in their car stereo systems, but it was enough to send the 1080 AM radio signal to Tulare, 53 miles away. Classical music was heard only in the car, or when he was outside grading his students’ papers, or grading a new stretch of vegetable garden. The 24/7 era was yet to come.

    It arrived with my parents’ separation and subsequent divorce. A few years before, Fresno had become the home of KFCF, 88.1 FM. My first recollection of the raw, unedited, free speech radio of KPFA Pacifica Radio, Berkeley, California (re-broadcast by KFCF) was shortly after Dad had moved into his temporary/new digs next door. The sound was something along the lines of “Yes, and uh, we wish to see, the…yes and uh…,” all in heavily accented English. My continued lack of enthusiasm for the Pacifica Radio has less to do with their politics, and more to do with their disdain for on-air polish and professionalism.

    The other not-for-profit station he tuned in was KVPR 89.3, the NPR affiliate out of Fresno. Many early evenings of my teenage years were spent listening to A Prairie Home Companion, while I primped in preparation for a night out with friends.
    As the house once again became a residence for one in the early aughts, the sound of the radio remained a constant until he moved out in 2006. KERN now carries Conservative Talk Radio on the 1080 AM radio signal and the call letters of KWSO now reside in Warm Springs, Oregon. A Prairie Home Companion became Live from Here in 2019 and then ceased to be in 2020. KVPR remains a pre-set on my car radio to this day.

Copyright © 2021 by James Knudsen