The first thing my mother did when she woke up was turn on the radio. Then she would turn on the coffee pot. The station she listen to the most was CFRB 1010 and the radio would remain on (unless she went out) until she went to bed. The constant chatter of people talking about topics and events was a constant through out our house. My family always had dinner together no matter how late my father worked or how early he had to get up in the morning. During dinner the radio was on and my parents would talk about their day and sometimes what was going on the radio.
When we moved to St. Catharines in 1986, the radio dial changed to more local news on CHSC or CKTB but the radio would continue to be on. We would always hush up for Paul Harvy’s “The Rest of the Story” or Charles Doering’s 10 minutes of news before noon when I would come home from lunch at school. I went through to University and I would still put on the radio if I was alone and when I lived in Korea I replaced the radio with TV.
Recently I bought a beautiful internet radio from Revo. It sits in my living room and allows streaming of internet radio so I can listen to CFRB and to CKTB (CHSC is no longer) from time to time. The stations have changed a lot with more edge to them and constant news and weather focusing on one thing and one thing only. I can also listen to KTAO out of Taos New Mexico where I spent a lot of time and listening to the station reminds me of the good times had there.
I always find it comforting to have voices going through the house which are not my own.