I remember the day my grandmother took me to Best Buy to buy my first radio. It was made of black plastic, with an antenna that was what I remember to be almost a metre high when fully extended. That’s still the clearest memory I have with her.
From that point on, nearly every memory of my childhood has been shaped by the presence of that radio on the kitchen counter, tucked between the bread basket and the bowl of whatever fruit is in season.
The radio was always on, tuned to the CBC, one of the steadiest forces in my chaotic childhood.
When I got the flu in elementary school, my mom was so worried about me she slept on the floor in my room. Stuart McLean was there too, telling stories through the radio of “The Vinyl Café,” of his characters Dave and Morley, lulling me to sleep.
Every Christmas I’d look forward to hearing “The Shepherd” recited on “As It Happens.” It didn’t feel like Christmas if I didn’t hear it.
Some of the strongest memories from my childhood surround the radio—the weather reports that acted as a lifeboat amid tornado warnings, the rock and roll that echoed every Saturday night. No matter what the week before had looked like, these constants were always there.
Every day of school I’d wake up, often foggy-eyed and stumbling downstairs to say hello when the morning radio host said her good morning message. If I didn’t greet Wei Chen, or Rebecca Zandbergen or whoever else was hosting the morning show that year, something was wrong.
When I moved away to university last year, I left my radio at home with my mom. I didn’t think twice about it. The radio was something that belonged in the kitchen next to the peaches I had been eating all summer.
I thought about bringing it to school when I went home at Christmas. My mom got a new one while I was away. It was always too big to fit in my bag or I was too busy to listen.
When I came home again due to COVID-19 and university shutdowns, the radio was something scary; something that brought bad news, of disease and brutality and political scandal. It was no longer a tool for storytelling, but a dark force warning of the outside world. I had to turn it off more often than I’d like to admit.
For the first while, it was awkward. Listening to hosts report from their bedrooms, describing their hodgepodge blanketed soundproofing made me uncomfortable.
Eventually, though, things evened out. I was able to listen to the news without needing to shut it off. Then the reruns started.
Once the podcasts were all played out and the timeless stories recorded pre-pandemic were used up, the CBC turned to reruns of the programs that had shaped my life up to this point.
I heard the familiar voice of Stuart McLean calling from downstairs one day when I woke up late. His character, Dave, had just gotten stuck on a bicycle atop a moving car. I remembered the readings my mom took me to at Christmas—the way it felt to be safe while surrounded by thousands of other people.
“As It Happens” turned to “throwback” stories, and I was reminded of the afternoons I had spent listening to the same stories when the world was normal.
I even heard the same music my mom and I had listened to on Saturday nights, years earlier—the classic rock queued by former rock star Randy Bachman, whose pre-song monologues we laughed at but secretly loved.
Listening to the programs and songs I once knew by heart was my saving grace in the early days of the pandemic. While I know we won’t return to the normalcy of having new content that wasn’t recorded in a reporter’s basement any time soon, it’s nice to be reminded of a time when that was possible.
For me, radio is a return to normalcy and a reminder of the good in the world when it feels hopeless. Art, and storytelling in all forms, is a tool for capturing the moments of our lives. Art isn’t just entertainment, but a way to remember what it’s like to feel understood and safe.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
