"I Just Looked Better On The Radio"
Al VinsonWhen I was a young man, there was no TV. Everybody had a radio. Only three radio stations to listen to in daytime. Nights were different. After sunset, a phenomenon known as the ionosphere came into play. As this atmospheric layer hovered around the earth, radio signals bounced around to make dozens of powerful stations available to us. Among others, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, a 750,000 watt Mexican station from Del Rio that carried Dr. Brinkley and his well worn commercial for goat glands, then there was Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Shreveport, Des Moines, Detroit, Nashville and many, many other night signals.
Jimmie Rodgers, on this video, was about the most popular music we received. We couldn't see him then, but I would have known him anywhere as he was described on the air as "The singing brakeman." He looks like every railroad brakeman I ever knew, but he is the only one that sang on the radio. Every time I hear this song, I think of my daughter's imaginary friend, Thelma. Of course, we all were nice to her when she came to supper at our house. We really got to know Thelma, but, and I hate to admit this, little Bobbie is the only one at the table who actually saw Thelma, and could tell what she was wearing at the time. Now, Jimmie Rodgers knew a girl named Thelma, and he sings about her on this video. T for Texas, T for Tennessee ...T for Texas, T for Tennessee. T for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me."
This was much like the appearance...or failure to appear.... of Jimmie Rodgers. The announcer would describe this gaunt figure of a man, starved from birth. Some days Jimmie would have a bandana hanging out of his pocket, other times the announcer would say, "Jimmy, I see you're dressed formally tonight, with your bandana tied around your neck. And, Jimmie, that's a mighty good lookin' railroad cap you're a'wearin'." Funny how the radio produced pictures in your mind compare to todays High Definition Digital color pictures. Come to think of it, I can still see Jimmie Rodgers with his red bandana, and everything else in black and white. If that announcer said it was red, that's the way you saw it in your mind. I used to tell my fellow broadcasters that radio wouldn't last since it was all in your mind.
My family, during the depression, lived at 314 Bremond Avenue, in Lufkin. We were really lucky in those lean years. My dad worked at the ice plant. Two uncles lived with us. Rounding out the family was my grandmother, mother and younger brother, Bobby. All were around the radio every night. We had a console radio, American-Bosch. It even had a shortwave band, and in those days of little electrical interferrence, I could hear ships at sea, police calls, ham radio operators and even shortwave stations from around the world. I listened to these after everyone else went to bed.
On my 12th birthday, September 13, 1935, Dad came home late one evening with a present I will never forget. It was a tabletop wind-up record player. There were two records with the phonograph. One was "Lucky Lindy" a song that payed tribute to Charles Lindberg, the first flyer to cross the Atlantic solo. The other record was by Kate Smith, singing her theme song, "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain."The depression days weren't so bad for our family, with three men working. Dad was even able to help a neighbor with a family. The man was not able to find work, and he lived off of the $12.00 a week my dad passed along to him. Dad made $35.00 a week, so I guess that phonograph was a real luxury gift when he only had $23.00 a week for his income. Dad said he bought it from Edwards Jewelry store on time. We had a cow, chickens, garden, fruit trees, strawberries and blackberries. Killed a hog every winter, right there in the back yard. Made soap, lard, had hams, soup bones, and even pickled pigs feet. In those days, people were farm raised, and even without realizing it, were better equipped to cope with hard times. My grandmother was a fabulous cook, baking cakes, pies, bread and rolls every Saturday. Local ladies began coming by the house every Saturday to buy her baked goods. My job was to milk the cow every morning and wring the neck of a chicken as soon as we came home from church every Sunday. Brother Bobby picked the strawberries and blackberries, ...eating most of his pickin's before he got to the kitchen with them.
Well, no wonder I ended up on the radio. I was totally absorbed with the radio, night and day. Loved music from the beginning, but never able to even come close to a talent for singing, humming or whistling. Some of my family and peers took a vote and said the only key I knew anything about was a skeleton key, and I should give up singing at once. That's when I decided I would "just talk" on the radio, if I ever got the chance. I've had a lot of people ask why I never went into television. Told them I just looked better on the radio.
When tuned to that old American-Bosch, I listened incessently to my announcing idol, James Alderman, and dreamed of the day I would get a chance to do what he did, only never as well. James was a staff announcer on WFAA and a cousin of my grandmother. My chance came when I was in high school. I stopped in at Butler drug for a malt one summer morning and Darrel Yates and Richman Lewing were doing a man on the street broadcast from the store. Their gig that morning was to give fifty cents if those interviewed could read a commercial cold, without ever pre-reading the commercial, or spot, as they called it. They came over to the counter and handed me the copy and stuck the mike near me and said....read it from the top. That was my first commercial. I read it on the radio and got fifty cents. I had two milk shakes that morning. 25-cents each. Mr. Yates told me years afterward that he somehow knew I was going to be an announcer some day. Well....I've been there....done that.Having a couple of railroad men living with us, probably influenced my pleasure from old railroad songs and the blues. The scene in the video shows names of men on the railroad callboard, which one uncle checked religiously. His name was Earl Rogers, and I saw the name Rodgers on the chalk board call list. That name was probably for Jimmie Rodgers. Uncle Earl would call from our telephone, number 259, about every hour to see if he was on call for a train out. The other Uncle, Garrett Slomosky, worked for Railway Express and rode the train to White City every day on a schedule.
Now, back to Jimmie Rodgers: Among his other songs, mostly songs about railroading, his lyrics are so memorable to me:
"Head for the roundhouse, Nellie, he can't corner you there."
"If the boarding house catches far (fire), throw my suitcase out the winder (window). I don't want to lose everything."
And, one of my all time favorites, "If you love your woman, you better keep her by your side....'cause if she flags my train, I'm sure gonna lett'er ride."
