That Transistor Radio!

When I was twelve years old, early in 1969, I fetched the AM transistor radio out of storage. Our family was supposed to use the newly-purchased radio to get updates from the government after the Cuban Missile Crisis went nuclear in 1962, after we had fled Corrales and relocated (by family consensus) to the ironically-named town of Cuba, NM (provided we weren't incinerated first, of course), but since that didn't happen, the radio, along with the newly-purchased 50-gallon water tanks, had been collecting dust ever since. 

Playing with the radio, outdoors, after the sun set, I was shocked at just how many radio stations I could listen to, from all over North America - KSL (Salt Lake City), KFI (Los Angeles), KRLD (Dallas), WHO (Des Moines), KSTP (St. Paul) - from all over! So sensitive! Totally beguiling! 

Rock music was red hot in 1969, of course. I loved listening to Wolfman Jack, broadcasting from XERF in Ciudad Acuña, just over the Mexican border from Del Rio, TX,, broadcasting at 250,000 watts, five times the regulated U.S. maximum limit. XERF dominated the airwaves. Apparently you could drive from New York City to Los Angeles and never lose the signal. The radio station was so powerful that Europeans and even Soviets could sometimes receive it. 

And so many good Sixties tunes! Like this one, from 1966. Never gets old!