The Vintage Reader

So this morning, while finishing up Vintage Baby's retro romper, I decided to actually try local radio again, because the Saitek was downstairs and I didn't feel like setting it up. The local radio scenario probably isn't really any worse than it is anyplace else; on FM we've got a great classic rock station, NPR, one of the "Jack FM" affiliates that plays the music of my misspent youth, and several of those awful "family-safe" stations. I started out on one of those because there was a song I liked playing (but now I don't remember what it was). But then it went on to the personal testimonials, by on-air personalities (I can't say use that phrase without thinking of Michael Ian Black in The State, many years ago, saying "...and all those spooky diseases! Ouch!"), about how wrinkle cream--no kidding, wrinkle cream--changed their lives, and how you can get a valuable coupon for it by stopping by their live remote, and I ventured on down the dial. Unfortunately, the clock radio in the sewing room didn't seem to be getting any FM stations except that one today, so I switched to AM instead.

Now, I already know there's one tried-and-true AM station that I really like, Solid Gold Soul. That's what my GE is tuned to now that WKBW has switched to a talk format, so I get to listen to the big bass (yes! The GE has a bass mode! And a speech mode!) echoing in the basement. And that is truly wonderful. But this morning I couldn't seem to find it in the sewing room. Instead, I found what I've been wishing for: a classic country station! Old country music, all week long, and then on Sundays, they play a show called POLKAMOTION! How can I possibly go wrong with a station like that?

This morning it was a syndicated show called Country Oldies, and the theme was "answer songs." They played one called "Queen of the House" that was a response to "King of the Road" (Roger Miller wrote them both) and "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" (a response to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life"). After that I skipped out for a little while to take pictures of the finished retro romper, and got back just in time to hear "Family Tradition," which is odd because yesterday I got it in my head and couldn't get rid of it after watching the episode of The Waltons where the house burns down and John Boy thinks it's his fault because he had been smoking a pipe in his room while working on his novel, and I flashed on that TV biopic of Hank Williams Jr., starring Richard Thomas, and thought, Hank, why do you drink, and why do you roll smoke?

But the main thing is that I finished the romper. Unfortunately, while the craftsmanship is admirable, Vintage Baby looks like a total dork in it, and if I ever let him out of the house wearing a pastel green romper with little bears cavorting about in pink and orange boxer briefs on it--not to mention the yellow Peter Pan collar--I'm sure I'd be looking at paying for years and years of costly child psychiatry.