It's night and I'm alone in the car, so I have the radio on for some company. The traffic report comes on, and I'm hearing about an accident on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Traffic's backed up to the Gowanus Expressway, and I can picture the frustration of the drivers caught in that mess.
Suddenly, I'm jerked back to my senses. There's about a half-dozen deer ahead of me as I round a mountain curve, and one is smack in my lane. It's not that I'm about to hit them, except that none of the deer move at all. So I'm forced to brake to a near stop before they amble off the road. By the time I can continue, the traffic report is closing, and the weather report starts in as I lose signal and static grows louder. I switch back to a CD and finish my trip down the mountain through Shenandoah National Park with only a few other deer sightings.
Such is the beauty of AM radio. At night, especially, the AM waves travel long distances. I can remember nights in South Carolina trying to catch Braves games. If it wasn't on the radio in Greenville, I might be able to get WSB in Atlanta. And while trying to find that, I could usually catch something out of Chicago or Boston. Now, years later, I move out of New York City to rural Virginia and I still get my favorite NYC news radio station, WCBS880. A couple of other AM stations from NYC come in, too. From time to time, I catch 770 WABC and 1010 WINS.
It's hard to beat 880, with its traffic and weather every 10 minutes on the eights. Makes for good memories as I drive back from games.
Posted by JRC at March 24, 2005 11:33 PM | TrackBack