Radio

My husband loves radios — or maybe I should say he loves radio.  Radio as a profession, radio as a hobby, radio in general. After all these years, he still becomes animated when taking about it — describing it as magic, creating all those electromagnetic waves in the air. He worked in the field of broadcasting his whole professional life and over time I got used to conversations at our house being peppered with references to antennas, transmitters and translators.  I like teasing him and asking if I might actually aspire in his estimation, to one day rank higher than radio does. When he was in junior high school he brought a small portable tape recorder to school, to preserve a certain unpopular teacher’s lecture, that he and his friends might later ridicule it. My husband was not a stellar student and when the teacher discovered the device, she promptly confiscated it and said disgustedly, “A radio. That’s all you need.  A radio.”   She misinterpreted the apparatus but it turns out that that was pretty much all he did need. And although I know at heart he’s actually very romantic, his idea of the best present for any girl he liked way back when, was the gift of a radio.  In fact, I’m the only woman who’s ever been in his life who hasn’t received a radio from him. After more than 47 years of a marriage that he and I both agree has been more than just good, you’d think I might have earned one by now.