Some of my earliest and fondest memories revolve around a big old floor radio that looked very much like the one above.
Late afternoon on most days, my Grandfather, Thomas Earl Garrett, would gather up a big pan of potatoes to be peeled for dinner, and his favorite paring knife. We would then, just the two of us, go into the living room of 3910 Jefferson St., Kansas City, MO, where we all lived. In the quiet of the room, the day, Gramps would turn on the radio.
Gramps would pull a chair up close to the radio, so he would not miss one word of the broadcast, and I would sit at his feet. That paring knife would not start moving until some wonderful show like the ‘Lone Ranger’, ‘Amos & Andy’, or ‘Our Miss Brooks’, magically erupted from the big wood box.
Once a show had started, there was only Gramps and me, and the deepening dusk of the evening. That paring knife would start slicing the skin from the potatoes in an almost perfect, thin spiral. I would watch the potatoes ‘unwind’ one by one and hear the voices coming from the radio, enthralled by both events.
Occasionally Gramps would chuckle, or even laugh out loud at something that had been said by the radio actors that I did not understand without ever losing his pace. And that too, was magical.
Late afternoon on most days, my Grandfather, Thomas Earl Garrett, would gather up a big pan of potatoes to be peeled for dinner, and his favorite paring knife. We would then, just the two of us, go into the living room of 3910 Jefferson St., Kansas City, MO, where we all lived. In the quiet of the room, the day, Gramps would turn on the radio.
Gramps would pull a chair up close to the radio, so he would not miss one word of the broadcast, and I would sit at his feet. That paring knife would not start moving until some wonderful show like the ‘Lone Ranger’, ‘Amos & Andy’, or ‘Our Miss Brooks’, magically erupted from the big wood box.
Once a show had started, there was only Gramps and me, and the deepening dusk of the evening. That paring knife would start slicing the skin from the potatoes in an almost perfect, thin spiral. I would watch the potatoes ‘unwind’ one by one and hear the voices coming from the radio, enthralled by both events.
Occasionally Gramps would chuckle, or even laugh out loud at something that had been said by the radio actors that I did not understand without ever losing his pace. And that too, was magical.
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