A Radio Valentine . . . That Started in a Carpool
by Sarah May Clarkson
In high school, I was a passenger in an unfortunate carpool. There were four or five of us being driven by a parent: a couple of geeky brothers (now probably captains of industry), a surly girl or two, and me.
We were hostage, cheek by jowl in a sedan or station wagon, compelled to listen to whatever the driver chose on the radio.
Which is where, and how, a life-long relationship developed.
One carpool parent unfailingly had public radio on the local classical radio program “Morning Pro Musica” with host Robert J. Lurtsema out of WGBH in Boston. I would never have admitted it then, but strains of beautiful music quieted the noise in my head before the school day began.
I survived the carpool, graduated from high school, went off to college, and reconnected with public radio as a young adult.
My husband and I were working in the Bennington, Vermont / eastern N.Y., area. Our public radio station there was WAMC out of Albany. We heard the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood live on Saturday nights, became huge fans of the Car Guys, and listened intently to the weekly interview show featuring the late Gov. Mario Guomo.
In 1995, we moved to central Pennsylvania and listened mostly to WPSU (State College) and occasionally WITF (Harrisburg). Somewhere along the line, we turned the radio on first thing in the morning, and public radio became the background in the house while we were at work and school. Our pets are, and have been, very well informed.
When streaming from your desktop emerged, I would stream (and still stream) public radio all day at work.
We are now nine+ years in Pocatello. When we took the leap to go west, we found there is no shortage of public radio options and I confess to becoming a bit of a public-radio floozy. KISU (Idaho State University’s station) is on in the house throughout day and in our old cars. I stream KUER out of Salt Lake City at work, and on my phone I listen to OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting. I want to commend KISU, which is, I believe, a small but mighty public radio station.
Public radio has been the place, over these many years, to inform me, instruct me, motivate and inspire me. I have read books, watched movies, learned about places / people / events from public radio, and otherwise expanded my horizons and knowledge.
For that, I will always be grateful. To live in a town with a local public radio station and a local newspaper is a great community asset and gift.
Now this story comes full circle, back to Boston. My dad fell ill in 2019 and died in 2020; my mom then moved to assisted living. I spent more time in Boston in the last five years than I did in the previous forty, and I listen to WGBH – where it all began.
Call this a Valentine to public radio, which it unashamedly is. And it all started in a mid-1970s carpool in the Boston of my youth.
